The Woodlands Half Marathon

So last weekend I ran the Woodlands Half Marathon. This was planned to be a training run and good fitness test for my full marathon in April. I didn't do any tapering for the race. In fact I ran 18 miles the Saturday before and 10 miles two days before. The week leading up to the race I got sick and poor little Spencer was real sick. It wasn't real ideal for racing but I thankfully starting feeling much better as the week went on. A lot of rest and a lot of Nyquil. 

We head over to Houston the day before the race. I added a little bling to my shoe "Earned Not Given". I love this. Its kind of how I feel about most of the things I love most in my life, they take hard, persistent effort and I have to earn them. Nothing I truly care about is handed to me. 

The race ended up being amazing. I felt pretty rotten from the start of the race, that was the untapered legs reminding me we've already worked really hard this week. I kept to my coach's plan and kept the first half around 7:37 pace. Then after that it was time to get to work. I immediately started dropping my times down to the 7:20s, 7:10s and then for the final 5k I went under 7 minute pace. I just starting picking girls off one at a time. Official finish was 1:37:05! A brand new Personal Best time. The course was great, mostly flat and the weather was pretty great. I am going to copy and paste my race report that I sent to the head coach who I work with. 

 I ran The Woodlands half marathon yesterday. I am running the Illinois Marathon in April and so this was a good fitness test in the middle of marathon training (Sarah didn't let up on me one bit, completely untapered:). I knew my legs would be tired, I ran 18 miles with a workout last Saturday and I had a long marathon pace tempo run on Thursday. Sarah told me she thought 7:40 pace for the first 10k would be conservative and a good way to start and I kept the first 7 miles at about 7:37 pace and then I let myself get to work. I finished the last 6.2 miles in 7:07 pace, with 3 miles sub 7 and I couldn't be happier with such a strong finish. My last mile was 6:45 (um that's faster than my mile repeats!) and that last .2 was 6:30 pace. After mile 7 not a single person passed me and man that's a good feeling! I finished 32 overall female and 5th in my age group and I am dang proud of that! 

I can't tell you happy it made my heart to see my whole family at the finish line. After running one of the hardest miles of my life I was totally spent and then I saw their faces and I ran to them. I couldn't wait to be with them. 

I know it was a lot of work for Aaron to get them all dressed and out the door early in the morning but I am so grateful that he did. 

Man I love these faces. 

(Carson - shirt on inside out, Camilla - wearing Brooke's jacket, nutella ring around her mouth, Brooke- pants on backwards and wearing 2 pairs of underwear, and sweet Spencer - wearing what he went to bed in) I love my perfect crew. 

This was a hard fought race and I am finally ready to take on the rest of training and rock 26.2 miles. 

After the race the kids hit up the bounce house while I ate everything I could find and changed into warmer clothes. Then I fed sweet Spencer who immediately fell asleep. Poor baby, he missed his mamma. 

Then after we got back to the hotel, Spencer went down for a little nap and me and Carson went out to run a couple of cool down miles. I had so much fun running with Carson. He talked to me the whole time. We talked about life, our trip to Costa Rica and the smoothies, and how he thinks some day he will run a marathon. I love him. 

Then it was time for recovery. I wanted nothing more than a nice warm hot tub. 

Spencer wanted to get in the pool so bad. Oh man this face, it kills me. 

Recovery with bubbles and my kids. Carson braved the pool as well. 

My girl. 

Then after we all showered and got dressed it was time to head home but not without a celebratory meal. We were headed out to my usual post race cheeseburgers, fries, and milk shake when we passed a spring creek and suddenly that sounded amazing. We all loved it, loaded up on sides and rolls and got 2 peach cobblers with bluebell ice cream on the house. One for me and one for the rest of the family. :) Yummy! 

So along the course I met this great guy, Manu, from Houston. We both went to BYU and he has 6 kids, I have 4 and we ended up running most of the race together. It was so great to have someone to talk to (he did most the talking) and work with, we kept each other going and both had strong races with PRs. 

This is a high I am going to ride for awhile.