I can't believe that it has been almost 3 months since the Nashville Country Music Half Marathon! Even worse was that my last blog date was March 21st, 4 months ago! Anyway my first half marathon was a huge success and I was thrilled to cross the finish line. We had a perfect day for race day with a cool sunny morning that later turned into a hot day in the south. After researching the course and hearing reviews I knew that we were in for some hills but holy cow I didn't realize the entire 13.1 would be up and down and back up again! The first mile we had a nice stretch of flat to get ourselves into a steady pace and then we tackled our first, long uphill battle. I will say that I felt fantastic the first 7 miles. We had our game plan of walking through the fuel stations etc... Miles 8-12 were pretty intense, between the hills and the heat the exhaustion was starting to kick in but by mile 12 it suddenly hit me that HOLY CRAP only 1.1 more miles left! The last .5 miles was an amazing downhill effort with a slight turn to the right and BAM the finish line! Nashville was an absolutely amazing city and the fans cheering was extremely motivating. Although I'd prefer to not ever run hills like that again I'm really glad this was my experience for my first half marathon. BEst feeling was crossing the finish line and thinking to myself....YES I would do this again!
There was a bit of an interesting hitch thrown into my whole half marathon weekend plans and Dale and my life is about to change in a huge way! 4 days before the marathon I found out I was expecting! It was definitely an unexpected twist but a ridiculously exciting surprise. After getting in touch with my Dr. she gave me the all clear to go ahead with the run. She did tell me to take more frequent walk breaks and really watch my hydration levels. This gave me a longer time in the end but of course it didn't matter at all because it was even more exhilirating to cross that finish line 5 weeks pregnant! It is a good thing that the race happened when it did though because a week later I was hit with the crazy first trimester exhaustion and morning sickness.
Right now I'm 17 weeks and 5 days along and everything is going great. My energy levels have finally returned and I'm back to doing some light workouts. Unfortunately due to some issues the Dr. has told me no more running through this pregnancy but I'm eager to lace up my sneaks and sign up for another half sometime in 2012!
Hopefully no one will mind that this blog will now be a baby blog and life blog about adventures in parenting!
