Joy Comes In The Morning: See Jane Run 1/2 marathon

Several months ago some of us ladies in Southwest Kansas were asked by the Garden City Recreation Commission's Wellness Director if we would be interested in traveling as a group participate in the See Jane Run 1/2 Marathon. I was on board from the get go as my Marathon training plan called for an actual 1/2 marathon just 5 weeks out. In our area, there really aren't a lot of options and since the See Jane Run event was just a week later I felt like this would be a good fit for me.

I began to taper for the 1/2 marathon about 8 days out even though it was that TOM for me and I find I am totally zapped of all energy and stamina. I knew that I really would love a pr, but with how my body has felt ever since I've ran my two 20 mile LSD's and ended up with some glute issues that it probably wasn't going to happen, but I did NOT rule it out. Yes, I'm a scrapper...I love a challenge. I've been icing my glute, stretching and took this past week fairly easy with my runs and mileage. To be very honest, I'm just down right tired all the time. I'm sure hoping that it is all this training and that the next three weeks of tapering restores all of that for me. ;-)

Meghan, Susan and I left Friday about noon headed for Wichita to pick up our race packets, get our motel, and then walk to dinner. It was a beautiful late afternoon and early evening and the 1 1/2 mile walk to the restaurant was nice after being in the car and taking two days off as rest days to try and be as prepared as one can be. We dined at the River City Brewing Company and I enjoyed one of the best black bean burgers, it really was tasty. My sleep was pretty restless as I had a massage on Thursday to help alleviate the aches and pains from the fibromyalgia as well as my glute and hip area. The therapist said I was really bound up and needless to say by Friday it had worked itself into my middle back. I wrestled with should I or should I not run and changed my game plan from pr to treating this run as an LSD and simply finish on Friday evening. It was a good call!

Susan is dealing with some back issues and changed her race from the 1/2 marathon to a 5k and her race started 30 minutes after ours so she was able snap pictures and cheer us on. Meghan and I started side by side knowing that if my body held together that I would cross the finish line and come back to find her. It truly has helped me in previous races when someone has done that for me and I feel like it is a great opportunity for me to "pay it forward".

This is just as I'm about to cross the finish line, and I'm telling you had I had absolutely nothing left to give. I was exhausted and hurting, but not ever to the point that I hurt worse than what I have been hurting or that I felt like I needed to walk because of my glute hurting. I did walk most of the water stops and I used this as a great training mission to fuel every 3 miles instead of 45 minutes. I noticed that my brain stayed much clearer and never was feeling like I could hit a wall. That makes me feel much better for Portland! I finished 12th out of 44 women in my age group, 219 out of 525 women over all. I'll take that for just running 2 1/2 years! While I was 11 minutes slower than my best 1/2 marathon, for how my body feels...truly I am ecstatic over what I was able to accomplish on Saturday. This makes my 11th 1/2 marathon event for 2013, many of them have been virtual races that I've paid for and received a medal for participating.