Route 66 Half Marathon Recap

13.1 Miles- DONE!

While this wasn't my first half marathon, this was the first one that I went into the race feeling mostly prepared.  I knew that I could have trained harder, but I also recognized that things like sickness and life circumstances sometimes prevent a perfect training schedule. 

But even still- I was able to set a new PR- 2:08:32, a 9:43 pace.  That's a number I'm dang proud of!  I've worked hard to get my times under 10:00.  I know if I keep working at it, my times will have to keep improving.

This was a fabulous race.  I've never ran this course before, and even though it was challenging (the entire first half of the race was UPHILL), I enjoyed it.  It was very pretty and the race was very well organized.

The first 7 miles went all throughout the historic neighborhoods surrounding downtown Tulsa.  There were some gorgeous homes and lots of encouraging families sitting on their front porches, cheering on runners.  *sidenote: I think it's a new goal of mine to have a house on a race route... I would love to sit on the porch with my cup of coffee, cheering people on- when I'm not running, of course* I was feeling great, and sticking right alongside my running buddy, Julie.  Mile 7 was a particularly steep hill, and I was beginning to feel the hills and humidity.  At one point I started seeing stars and had to step off to the side and slow my heartrate down. 

At mile 8, we crossed a tall bridge going over the river, leading us onto riverside drive.  I was excited to see the stretch of flat road at the end of the bridge.  I was NOT excited to be greeted by those 20 mile wind gusts into my face for the next 3 miles.  This was also the mile where Julie told me to go on, so I was alone at this point. 

By mile 10, I was starting to hurt.  I knew that I was giving this race everything I had, but the humidity was killing me.  I took a quick walk break, turned up my iPod and pushed on to mile 11.  I stopped to walk for a minute or so and stretch out my calves and then pushed through.  My pace was starting to drop, and I knew I was getting dehydrated.  I ate a couple of chomps and kept going to the next waterstop.  I was so happy to see the turnaround (we were running a strip of road parallel to everyone else headed to the finish line... seeing the stream of runners forever away in the distance running towards me was a little discouraging, I have to say.  But it was nice to see a few familiar faces along the way- they encouraged me to keep going.)

Mile 12 was better- we had turned so the wind wasn't blowing directly into my face.  When I saw the mile 13 sign, I dug as deep as I could and sprinted to the finish line.  I stopped my Garmin as I crossed the finish line and saw this:

A couple of my other friends from church crossed right behind me.  We went to gear check and grabbed our stuff.  I was a sweaty mess, but so happy.

With my training buddy, Julie.  She finished a few minutes behind me.  I know I couldn't have run the race I did without her!

The rest of our runners came in and we ate our way back to the hotel for showers.  I'm telling you- post race showers are some of the best ones!  I rank them right up there with the first shower at home after camp!

When the rest of our group got back, we rushed to the finish line to watch the full marathoners cross the finish line.  We missed the first two, but found out when we got there that our third friend, Kristen, had some serious tummy issues and wasn't doing as well as she had hoped.  We waited around and talked with Laurie and Mandy about their race.

This leads to the best part of the whole weekend.  We looked up and saw Kristen rounding the corner with her two daughters on either side holding her hand and her husband with them.  They all crossed the finish line together... Oh man, we were all crying.  It was THE BEST thing that we got to see all weekend   So proud of these ladies for running the full 26.2 miles..

I have had the best time training with this fabulous group of women.  I'm excited to see what adventures the spring holds.  I'm hearing rumors of a full marathon... I guess we'll just have to see!