victory, Victory, VICTORY!

Saturday was the big day; my first half marathon race!!

Drek took Ash over to his parent's house for the night and I stayed at my parent's house so I could get some sleep and so I wouldn't wake them up in the morning.

I woke up at three thirty in the morning (So early)! My dad and my sister and I were all signed up to run, and my mom was wonderful enough to drive us do support throughout the race. When we signed up to run, our goal was to finish in under four hours. After we ran out fourteen miles two weeks ago, we decided we could finish in under three hours if we pushed it,so that was our new goal; finish our first half marathon in under three hours.

My mom and dad and I drove over to pick up my sister, then we headed up the canyon to the starting line.

So the race finally started at (ten minutes late) and we were off! I'm so grateful to my sister, who was so good at keeping the pace. For the first six miles I was so excited and so high on adrenaline I kept wanting to run faster. If it weren't for my sister, I would have taken off and wouldn't have been able to finish.

We reached the halfway point before we knew and we were making really good time. All of us were feeling great so we added a short sprint at the end of every run/walk cycle. Right after we passed mile seven we had a wonderful surprise; my mom and my sister's family were on the sidelines to cheer us on! A few blocks later, my nieces waited to cheer for us! a few blocks after that my wonderful husband stood with our baby! It was so wonderful to see them cheering for us! I have the best husband ever.

They showed up a few more times throughout the race! My mom was at different spots the whole way to offer us water or juice or towels (it was raining) of take whatever we didn't want to carry. At one point Toshi even showed up! All of it was so appreciated. We couldn't have finished without you!

Mile nine is where I started feeling tired, but it wasn't anything new and I knew I could keep going. The surprise came during the last mile, when for some reason my throat closed up and I had a really hard time breathing. That's never happened before, I still don't know what happened. I ran through it and was fine a few minutes later.

Then came the finish line! When we came around the curve, dad was ahead of both me and my sister, so we decided to sprint to catch up to him, and then sprint to the finish line. When we passed him he decided to sprint too. We rounded the final curve, where all the stands were set up and everyone was cheering, so I decided to give it all I had. I took off and flew down the last part. I passed two runners, and the realized my dad was gaining on me! I ran faster, he ran faster, I ran faster and we crossed the finish line at the exact same time! I crossed so fast they didn't have time to call my name!

Right away they cut off my timing chip and hung a medal around my neck. A Medal! And that was it, I had just finished a half marathon! The best part; we finished well under three hours. I finished in 2:51:48.7, point four seconds behind my dad. That put me in in place 473, out of 1,000 half marathon runners. I was 99th for my age group. I was doing one mile every 13:06 minutes.

At then end my family and Drek's family was there, as well as my sister's family. It was so wonderful to have to much support! I really, really appreciate everything my husband did to help me with all my training and this race, and I really, really appreciate everything my mom did. And, of course, I am so grateful to my sister and my dad: You guys are amazing!

Now on to a marathon!