Searching for a Destination Unknown: Fourth One Down

Well, I did it! The 4th half marathon is FINISHED. AND AND AND I PR'D!!!!!!!!!! For those non-runners (ha, I guess I am a "runner" now) a "PR" is a personal record. We finished in exactly 2 hours, 1 minute and 43 seconds. HOLY SHCHMOLE!!!! I skimmed off 12 minutes from my fastest time EVER. And I finished and I felt fine. No wanting to vomit at the end hahahaha. I was even able to drink the beer afterwards!!!! Mission accomplished!!!

The running Gods aligned and everything went perfect. It was an amazing temperature, flat course, slight wind, I drank loads of water and ate carefully the days prior, everything came together to allow me to have a great time. It helps that I run with my Dad on race day because naturally he is faster than I am and I had to keep trying to keep up with him! I kept thinking, "ugh I wish he would slow the ^&*^*%&* down!!!!"

I, in no way thought I would be anywhere near the 2 hour mark. I think around mile 5 I passed the 2:00 pacer and thought that would be amazing to get close to that but I just don't think I have it in me to keep up this pace. Well, I am happy to report that I only stopped at the water stations and only long enough to drink or gargle the water and gatorade. My dad forgot to set his watch when we crossed the start line (thank god, because I HATE getting the time report from him every time we cross a mile marker). So when we crossed and the clock said 2:09.36, I was super excited because I thought we finished somewhere around 2:05. I kept trying to load the webpage while we were in the tent later because I thought it would be instant posting, but alas it was not. It wasn't until a few hours later that it posted and I saw my official score. I was STOKED!!!!!! Its been my lifetime goal to get under 2 hours (hell, I'd settle for 1:59.59) and never thought I could get close to that. Now its within my reach and my dad has already suggested/stated that "a 9 minute mile is easy to knock out". Um, WHO ARE YOU?!?! Do you know who I am?

I can report that doing Crossfit has done wonders for my time. Not only did it help me slim down to a weight I haven't been in a while, but the whole freaking race I was like "If I can do a WOD, then I sure as hell can do this race". HA!

This is the 3rd time I've run this course (Shamrock '09 & Rock and Roll '09) and I also ran another half in Richmond 10. I hadn't started this blog yet when I ran the first two, but I really wish I had! Phew, I must be a glutton for pain!