Lucky #13!!! My 13th race of 2013 was 13.1 miles, my first half marathon of the year. My training for this was...inconsistent. Running in Michigan in January/February/March (and this year, even April) can be challenging to say the least. It was bitter, bitter cold and running got derailed a few times. I slipped on some ice in February and twisted my knee; lost about 2 weeks. I had some foot pain after the Martian 10k and lost another couple of weeks.
Regardless, I was determined to run this in less than 2:30 hours. I spent a lot of 2012 nursing a sore quad and "ran" two half marathons in about three hours each. So I was running this in less than 2:30 if it killed me. I followed a training plan on runkeeper.com and I think it was a very effective plan! My training was inconsistent, but that was not a fault of the plan.
The race itself: I ran with my cousin Melissa (who also seemed to have some focus issues before the race) and Ashleigh, who has been rocking in her training and needed a new challenge. So she was a late entry and ran her very first half and kicked butt!!
This race was run in downtown Mt Clemens and was a very nice route. Nice and flat. Mostly on city streets, but also through a Metro Park.
Now, as far as my goal of 2:30, my plan according to runkeeper.com:
Miles 1-3 run in 11:40/mile
Miles 4-11 run in 11:20/mile
Then run the last 2 miles as fast as you can
Sharry's reality: run 11 miles averaging 11:00/mile. Then the wheels will come off; crawl the last 2 miles.
I felt SO fantastic for 11 miles. Then...my foot started to hurt. My legs felt like jello. It was a struggle, to say the least. However, my finishing time was 2:28!! I *just* made it. But I did it! I ran in less than 2:30!!
After we finished, we collected our finishers medals and celebrated with some post race beer and a big, fat lunch! As it turns out, we again completely failed in the photo department. We kept talking about how we needed to take pictures, but we never did. :'(
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