Nike+ Women’s Half Marathon

This weekend was the Nike+ Women’s Half Marathon. It was a fundraiser for leukemia and lymphoma, which is why I decided to run this one. We could run it anywhere we’d like as long as we logged the run on our Nike+ pod and uploaded it to the Nike web site. I had been training solo for this run for two months and had planned to do it by myself. When I mentioned it to a friend, she rallied our other friends and before I knew it five of them ran all or part of the route with me. While we were running, my supportive husband was getting fruit, cheese, beer, and wine ready and making tortilla soup. The run itself wasn’t the most fun thing I’ve ever done. There were more hills than I remembered and the last few were exhausting. Fortunately I remembered to bring two Gu’s and Lou had a full Fuel Belt waiting for me at mile 6. Normally I run with an iPod in my ears to keep me motivated, and which tells me which mile I’m on and triggers me to take sips of water. Since I was running with friends I didn’t wear the ear buds, but Laura was good about reminding me to drink. I also am not accustomed to talking while running, but my friends talked almost non-stop the whole run. I’m a better listener than a talker, so that’s just what I did most of the time. They were certainly more entertaining than the same old songs for 2.5 hours. When we finished our run, we discovered that we had actually run 13.68 miles. Although the run was almost half a mile longer than the Pittsburgh half marathon I did last May, I finished almost 30 minutes faster. I definitely credit my friends for keeping me motivated and running a little faster than I may have towards the end.