Damsel Diaries 11 years ago DAMSEL DIARIES // MY FIRST HALF
Over 95 miles {with a month off from injury} I ran in training for the hills, the sweat and the challenge. The music had been carefully selected and outfit perfectly planned. As we rounded the corner of mile 12 my entire body felt numb. I couldn’t hear the music blasting in my ears anymore. I couldn’t grasp on to any positive thought of “Just Do It” or “You are almost there.” I couldn’t see the finish line only 1 mile away. The 50 degree chill of the early San Francisco morning began to bite at my bones. All of the muscles in my feet ached in agony. My knees felt as if they were going to give out on me with each pounding step against the street.
If you handed me a million dollars to complete the full marathon at that moment I would have laughed in your face. There was no way I could go on.
If you ask me in this moment if I would do it all over again? My answer: Absolutely.
“The only people who interest me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live.”
When Catt and I signed up for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon just over 3 months ago that’s exactly what we must have been: MAD. At least we had 30,000 other runners who joined us in the madness. If there is anything I took away from this run it is an entirely new meaning for mind over matter.
There were moments of the run where we were hauling and there were moments of the run where we were hurting – bad. Our goal was to finish under 2 hours and 15 minutes, however there was one thing we did not truly factor in: HILLS.
Holy Hills. I prayed, I begged, I promised… I would do anything to make the hills stop. If you are ever training for a half or full in San Francisco please do your legs a favor and train for vicious hills.
It it hadn’t been for Catt’s dear friend Stacie {seen above in our “taper” run the day before the race} I am pretty sure that Catt and I would have ditched the hills for some hamburgers at the nearest pub. Stacie is a fitness trainer/expert who is not only smokin’ hot with sick style, but the girl can r-u-n. She pushed us every inch.
{Catt & I pre “Taper” run}
{Team “Dirty Early Girls” at the finish line with our main man “the Husband”}
In the end we blew our goal out of the water with a cool finish of 2 hours and 5 minutes which we fought every step for. I am so happy to say that I’ve completed my first half and still look forward to running every {other} day.
A lot of you have asked for my running playlist so here it is. Music is such a personal experience. I think you’ll laugh at some of my song choices but I arranged a high and low playlist that took me on a journey of memories I wanted to think about during my run.
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