The St. Jude Half

Kate and I decided to run the St. Jude Half Marathon about 5 weeks before the actual race.  My neighbor Sam had a few spots for us through his company.   So, we "trained" for 5 weeks.  I think we only got up to 5 or 6 miles.  I was worried. So the last time I did this was with Jerianne 5 years ago - and it was a doozy.   I loved training for it but you know how sometimes you feel good and sometimes you don't?  Well, I trained for months and I loved the first half of the race but the last half was terrible.  I had some unforeseen circumstances and was pretty miserable when I crossed the finish line.  And even though I got my goal of under 2 hours (1:59:58) I vowed I would never do it again.  Well, here I was 5 years later and this time without really training.  So I couldn't sleep the night before because I was so anxious about how it would go.  Well, this time I got lucky.  I felt good.  And I ran it and actually really enjoyed the whole darn thing.   About half-way through the race I decided I was going to try to finish under 2 hrs and 30 mins.  I finished at 2:29:44.  And Kate got 2:32:58!  The funny thing is we separated after the first mile but apparently ran the whole thing pretty darn close to each other.  We were both listening to headphones (music and Little Women).   But I was so proud of Kate because this was her first half and 5 miles during training was the furthest she's ever run in her life.  And she didn't even seem that tired at the end.  I can see her doing some more of these. 

me, Sam and Kate at the fire station where we got to park because Sam is the man with the hook-ups.

in corral #10 waiting to start with my best Kate

sooo many people.  And here we go.

this is a little taste of what the whole race is like.  It's amazing. and inspiring.

stjudehalf from katiehale on Vimeo.

The Walkers were there and snapped this picture of me.  I was excited to see people I knew.

We're done!  And getting our yummy soup in the food tent. 

 Lucy welcomed me home with a sign and a massage. 

I can honestly say I had fun running it this time and even though I didn't get to train much or get a PR, I'm glad I did it.