26 done ... 26 to go...

What: #98 Run a half marathon

When: October 18th
Where: Detroit and Windsor, Canada
Why: Whether it's scientifically accurate or not, I've heard and believed that women get more efficient at running as we get older, so I figured that now was a good time for me to start looking at extending my distance to take advantage of this belief. In late May, I decided to sign up for the Detroit Half Marathon. I had two reasons for doing this; the first reason is that Detroit is the flattest city I know, so it seemed a great course for a long run. The second reason is that the international border crossing into and out of Canada is so unique that it made this an interesting race to run.

My training program had me running longer than I ever thought possible. For years, my body stopped at 3 miles, but this helped me double my distance and get up to 6 miles by July, and then my training started to slow down once September rolled around and I started to have knee pain. I don't think I ever ran more than 8 miles in my training runs, but I did start to notice that my average pace never really dipped even when I added miles to my distance. That was encouraging!

I could have better prepared, but luckily I had a friend's husband willing to be my race-day coach. Paul gave me advice for a couple of weeks leading up to the race, helping me to think through the mental aspect of the race and working on my posture to be more effective.

Coming out of the tunnel from Canada

On the cold, early morning walk through downtown Detroit to the starting line, I was nervous. Very nervous. What was I thinking?? I was convinced that I'd have to walk most of the route, and had resigned myself to that fact. Paul, however, had other plans, and decided early on that not only would I run the whole race, I'd do it at a pace that could get me in well under my 3-hour goal. And he was right! I wish I could more accurately journal how I felt at each mile because it was surprising how much fun I was having, listening to a kick-ass run mix, seeing great landmarks along the Detroit River, and really feeling mostly fine (until about mile 12...I actually thought my leg muscles were going to burst out of my thighs and kill me dead...). Then of course, there was the immediate feeling of sheer tearful joy after crossing the finish line (#7,566 out of about 15,000!) and the initial thought that I never needed to do this again, but I already feel like I might, MIGHT, do it again one day!