McQuay Memories: {Half Marathon!}

I did it! I survived my half marathon!

By the time the big day rolled around I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been. Due to a number of sicknesses and ailments that inhibited my breathing and other necessary functions for running I missed a large amount of my training. I missed 5 out of my 12 Saturdays of training. [Saturdays were my long distance runs....] By the day of the race the longest I had ever run at one stretch of time was 9 miles, but that was 3 weeks before the race.

So, by the week of the race I was pretty nervous.

I woke up super duper early to catch the bus and then the DART to head downtown. It was absolutely frozen that morning. So cold my whole body was shaking. I should have brought something more than a hoodie but..... you live and learn I guess.

There was a nice guy at the DART station who was heading towards the race as well and chatted for a bit and I asked him if he runs races frequently and he said, no, not really and then elaborated saying he has 2-3 more planned for the end of the year. Hello! That is a lot of races....

When I arrived downtown it was crazy. There were thousands upon thousands of people in running gear stretching and dancing and laughing. They were all pumped up and crazy. I was mostly just frozen and nervous. I checked in my bag and found a nice quiet spot to start stretching. I said a prayer just pleading that I could finish the race at a time that I would be pleased with taking into account the holes in my training.

The announcer guy then said for us to congregate by the time that we were planning on finishing the race by. There were pace setters holding up signs with different times on it from 1:30 hr - 3:30 hr in 10 or 20 minute increments. During the height of my training I was averaging about a 10 minute mile and figured that 2:20 would be a safe bet for finishing with. But then I thought that I could probably push myself a little bit and decided to stick with the 2:00 and when I fell behind I could just stick with the 2:20ers. So 2:00 it was!

The gun sounded and off we went. I was a little bit behind the pace setters for a mile or two and then decided that I could handle it and ran a little faster to catch up with them and didn't let myself get more than 3 steps behind them for the majority of the race.

It was cold starting off but by mile 3 I had taken my hoodie off and was doing fine. The course was beautiful! It was near the arts district downtown, went by turtle creek and past multi-million dollar homes. It was really beautiful.

The pace setters were extremely helpful and encouraging. It was also interesting running with a bunch of other people. I felt that we were all in this together, and that we were there supporting one another. There were about 5-6 people that stuck with the 2:00 pace setters for the majority of the time and even though we didn't talk to each other very much, I was glad that they were there. If they could do it, I could do it.

I only got water twice... it was pretty cold so I wasn't sweating much and it's very difficult to run and drink from a cup at the same time and there was no way that I was going to stop. If I stopped, I knew it would be hard to get back into the groove of things so I just kept going.

The hardest part was about mile 8 or 9.... but then the trail started going downhill a little bit and the pace setters said that if we made it this far, then all we had to do was not mess up for the rest of the race and we'd be fine. The last 2 miles though were uphill and that was not as happy as I would have liked.

I stuck right by the pace setters until about mile 11 and then I just started going faster. I couldn't not go faster. It was crazy but I liked it. So for the last 2 miles I pushed ahead and by the end of the race I was about 1/3 of a mile ahead of the pace setters. I felt awesome. Once I saw that finish line I sprinted to the end and my legs almost fell off. It was awesome. During that last sprint I heard my name called out by my wonderful fans [Sean, Baby Girl, Emily, and Jared] and then again by the announcer guy as I crossed the finish line. Amazing.

I was so tired and hungry but I finished my first half marathon in under 2 hours and that felt good - and then I spotted some muffins and that felt good, too :)

Here's the only near decent picture of me taken during the race around mile 12. Decent, but not good enough to pay $40 for it.....hence the PROOF across it :)

Here are my official stats:

I'm very very pleased with my results!

Here's me grabbing some water right after the run:=

Chowing down on some muffins cause I was starving. I had a banana on the DART down to the race but you burn a lot of calories running for 2 hours so I needed some sustenance.