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Last weekend Joel and I ran in the Mill Race (Half) Marathon here in Columbus.  We signed up with the intention of doing at least a little bit of training - but that never happened.  Joel runs a mile or two every now and again during this breaks at work and I pretty much dont run at all unless Im being chased.  Lets face it, I just dont have time - particularly given that I exercise 6 days a week at Farrells.  And I wasnt about to trade that in for running.

I was pretty nervous leading up to the thing.  I figured I could finish it - even if it meant walking most of the way - so I dont think thats why.  I think I was mostly nervous that I would get hurt from lack of training.  

Aaannnnyywaays...  Joel and I had dropped the kids off with Josh and Marie the night before the race because we had to be downtown by 6:45am.  More on the overnight stay in bit...

We got downtown and then got stuck in traffic for about 20 minutes trying to make our way to the parking garage.  I was glad we got there early - helped keep my anxiety at bay.  We took a before picture in the parking garage because neither one of us wanted to carry our phones the whole way.

Then we made our way to our coral (after peeing once and then Joel had to pee again - nerves I reckon) and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Ok it wasnt that long but it always feels like forever when youre ready to just GO.

And then we went.  And we did pretty good.  We did a run/walk combo - mostly to help with the mental side of accomplishing 13.1 miles.  Run 2.5 minutes, walk 1.5 minutes.  I think this served me really, really well.  It was tough in the first couple miles to make myself stop running after 2.5 minutes because I felt like I could keep going.  But the key is in pacing myself and Im really glad we did it this way because I felt good - pretty good - right up until about mile 10.

And then I decided the last 3 miles was going to suck no matter which way you sliced it.  Everything was starting to hurt, but particularly my hip flexors and my left achilles.  Cue no training regret!  

But we pushed through and then mile 12 hits and Im getting super excited to be almost done.  And then Joel gets a wicked bad cramp in his quad.  And he has to stop.  And I stop for a second to wait for him and very quickly realize I absolutely CAN.  NOT.  STOP.  Or I will not finish.  At this point, I cant even walk.  Jogging is easier than walking.  So I keep going and leave Joel behind to suffer alone.  But hes tough and somehow mentally overcomes the pain and catches back up to me, pushing himself to get to the end.  

I can see the finish.  Its about 1/4 mile ahead.  Im nearly weeping/hyperventilating with joy.  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see this woman blasting past me like Im stopped on the side of the road sitting in a lawn chair.  She has on a blue number tag which means shes running the marathon.  So here I am practically hobbling my way to the end and this woman has covered TWICE the distance in the same amount of time and shes about to cross the finish line like shes just on mile 1.  Sick.  

But then we DID cross the finish and I forgot about that woman and I grabbed up my medal and my water and my banana and my granola bar and my cookies and my pretzels and I collapsed on the curb and ate.  Best oats n honey granola bar I ever ate.

And then we hobbled / limped our way back to the car - taking the elevator to the 3rd floor of the parking garage.  Took our "after" selfie.  I think we look pretty good.

So how did we do, numbers wise?  According to FitBit, we actually ran 13.37 miles.  Did it in 2 hours and 44 minutes - so thats a 12 minute 15 second mile pace.  Im pretty sure I could BARELY run at that pace when I was in high school.  Also, for the record, when I did the Indy mini-marathon back in May 2010, I trained for 8 months to do it.  And I completed it in 3 hours and 15 minutes and was never more proud of myself.  But now, I shaved a whopping 30 minutes off my time.  THIRTY.  MINUTES.  That just blows my mind - if I had the time to train today, like I did back then, I cant imagine what I could have done.  My state of health is just so different these days.

How did we feel the rest of that day?  Like hell.  Sore.  Sore.  Sore.  But it didnt last long.  By Sunday, we were about 70% better and by Monday, felt back to normal.  

How did the rest of the weekend go besides physical recovery?  Like hell.  Hell.  Hell.  Hell.  

As I mentioned, the kiddos hung with their Basham cousins on Friday night and into Saturday.  Where they were spoiled rotten and had the time of their lives playing with cats.

Heres Lily pouting when I told her that she couldnt take one home with her.  Youd have thought I just told her that I was going to run over the thing with my car.  She was seriously depressed... 

After leaving Josh and Maries, the kids promptly fell asleep in the car.  

We headed back to downtown Columbus to see if Joel or I were the lucky winner of a new truck (all finishers of the half and full marathon were entered).  We were not.  

And then, out of nowhere, Lily decides to throw one holy hell of a fit.  And it took us over 30 minutes just to get her in the car.  With half the police department and Columbus SWAT team watching in the distance as our 4.5 year old stood on the side walk screaming bloody murder.  It was awesome and not at all embarrassing.  

And she pretty much screamed and kicked for the next 2 hours until she finally just passed out.  Just what we wanted to deal with after a day of running 13.1 miles.  Scuze me...13.37 miles.