Ramblings of a Stay-at-Home Mom: Race for the Roses

For the last 12 weeks I've been training for a half marathon. I did the Race for the Roses here in Portland last year, but I hurt so badly afterward that I decided if I trained a little better, maybe I wouldn't be in so much pain.

The training schedule was intense. (At least for me.) It started out at running 15 miles in a week and worked up to 29 miles in a week. Every Saturday was the "long" training run. It was anywhere from 6 miles to 12 miles.

While the training was challenging and I had my bad days, on the whole it was really good. I did a lot of the shorter runs on the treadmill so I didn't do too much damage to my body. All of the long Saturday runs were either on the track or on the street.

Two weeks ago I did the 12 mile run and it was fabulous! I didn't struggle with it at all, the weather was nice and I felt really good afterward. So I wasn't really that worried about the actual event. Let's face it, if you can run 12 miles, 13 isn't going to be a big deal right?

I learned the hard way that I was wrong.

Everything depends on how you're feeling that particular day and when I woke up Sunday morning, race day, I knew right away that it was going to be a hard run. I can't really explain it. My body just felt a little "off". I hadn't slept well the night before, my stomach was a little uneasy and I just felt exhausted.

I was determined to finish though.

I did struggle from mile one, but I had a few moments of easier running. My hubs and kiddos came down and stopped along the route to cheer for me and that meant the world! There was a time that I was ready to cry I was so frustrated and I looked up and there's all my guys cheering for me on the side of the road. That gave me the pick-me-up I needed!

My goal from the beginning was to beat my time from last year. That didn't happen, but I did finish strong. I'll go back next year and try to do it again.