It’s hard to even really write about this event because it is all very surreal. Four months ago, I had no plans to run. Then a strange turn of events occurred and after training for 3 1/2 months, Lindy and I ran a 1/2 marathon today. 13.1 miles.
We found a race that had two main criteria: Cool weather and flat terrain. The See Jane Run Women’s 1/2 Marathon in Alameda, CA fit the bill.
As it drew nearer, we got more and more apprehensive. Lindy’s calf started hurting bad when she ran, my arthritis was acting up, and then we heard it was supposed to POUR the entire weekend. After a stressful last week of school for the kids, and dance pictures…we felt all forces working against us to really pull the weekend off.
Luckily both Tucker and Mike were very supportive and didn’t even bat an eye at going. So we loaded up the kids and drove up to Oakland to our hotel on Saturday afternoon. We got there for early check-in, got good rooms, picked up our race packets and ate a good pasta dinner. We were nervous that we didn’t have enough gear for the supposed rain, so we were googling places to run in to get hats or jackets or just any last minute items we thought we *might* need.
Finally, we got the kids settled back at the hotel around 9:00 and got to bed around 10. The kids were having so much fun being on a trip with their cousins and didn’t understand why Lindy and I weren’t saying “yes” to sleeping over in eachother’s hotel rooms. Our biggest concern was OURSELVES for a change – we wanted to make sure we rested enough! 5:30 would come early!
The night sleep wasn’t great, but could’ve been worse. Jordyn and Lexi were kicking each other all night long and seemed to need us like little newborn babies. That was irritating. But I was able to sleep decently in between interruptions.
We met in the hallway at 6:00 to grab some breakfast and head to the race START. There were over 4,000 participants, so we had to part pretty far away. We ate McDonald’s egg McMuffins (or picked at them), some chocolate milk and I nibbled on some oatmeal.
We got to the race about 7:15 and had about 45 minutes to get situated. It was perfect. And the weather had not a drop of rain in sight! It was probably around 60 degrees and overcast. Very nice morning. Here we are before the race began.
We started at an average pace and it was hard to have SO many people around us, and passing us. But we learned from the 10K not to get too caught up in keeping up with the fast runners and then wasting our energy early on. So we kept our reliable pace and ran for the first 4 miles. After that, we did our occasional 1 minute walk approximately every mile…maybe a little farther than that. We seemed pretty good until mile 6 or so and my left knee started to feel broken. I had not experienced that on other runs, but it scared me. Somehow, it felt okay if I was running, but if I stopped, it was nearly impossible to keep going again. That was hard and Lindy took off one of her compression socks to let me put it on my knee. It helped maybe 5%. After that, we tried to keep up on our gels/protein shots…but probably could have done better. We drank more water than I had envisioned, which is good. I just remember during mile 9 starting to drag a bit. I felt like mile marker 10 took FOREVER to come.
After we finally reached mile 10, I realized that a cruel trick can be played on your brain. We felt like we were “close” because we had ten miles down. But 3 miles to go is still over 30 minutes more of running! So it turned into a mental struggle because we kept feeling like we were almost there, but we really weren’t. It gets a little hazy, but I remember after mile 11 Lindy started to seem like she was struggling, but wouldn’t let me encourage her to walk for a bit. She said she was fine but I knew she wasn’t. We power-walked more than we had all race, but by that point, our power-walk and our run were about the same pace anyway! Somewhere after mile 12 Lindy really made me nervous and then had tears in her eyes and said she couldn’t breathe. And she was really gasping for any air. It scared me a lot. We stopped and I started yelling to anyone around us to see if anyone had an inhaler. No one did and there was no medic nearby. My mind was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do! When suddenly she said “I’m okay” and was able to calm down and breathe. We took it slow until we hit 1/2 mile before the finish line and had it in us to run again. It was scary because right at the end, we passed two women laying down with a medic near them. One of them was on the ground and they had been doing CPR on her to get her breathing again! I have since read that she was taken to the ICU and is doing okay now. Scary!
Anyway, I got a little emotional when I realized we were at the end and I saw our kids waiting for us and cheering us on. That was so sweet to see. I know it was a lot of work to bring our whole families, and a lot of work for Mike and Tucker to get all six kids to that point to see us, but it really was worth it and meant a lot! We felt totally wiped out, but also satisfied. Like I said, it was pretty surreal.
It was amazing to see so many types of women there. All ages, sizes, shapes, abilities. And I tried really hard not to focus on the really fast athletic women and realize that it is a big deal that I am doing this, no matter how fast or how I fare compared to everyone else. It is quite a fun memory and experience to have been able to do with my sister, too. I hope someday our kids are inspired by this!
Afterward, Tucker and Mike had the kids play at the park and LIndy & I (and Kylee) got Subway and headed back to the hotel to shower. We had requested late check-out, so we were out the door by about 2:30 and headed home! All I wanted for my reward was a double scoop of Baskin Robbins (peanut butter chocolate and mint chocolate chip- YUM), so we indulged on our drive home. It was a great weekend!
