Half marathon - check!

Susan and I completed the Kirkland Mother's Day half marathon, and all went better than expected!  I had heard the hills on this half were killer, so I was expecting to be really hurting.  I did do a fair amount of hill training and for the most part I didn't mind them too much.  I walked the really steep ones, and the rest were a nice rolling up and down.

I had planned to come in around 3 hours, and beat that at 2:48.  I think that's not half bad for my first half!  I could have pushed harder, but I didn't want to risk injury or even just hobbling around sore for days.  As it was, I felt pretty wiped the rest of the day, and somewhat sore the day after.

Some notable things:

•  I was very nauseous for the rest of the day.  This has never happened to me after a run before.  Maybe it was dehydration?  I drank a cup at every water stop, maybe I need to carry some too.  Will definitely research this more if I ever sign up for another half.
• Towards the end I decided to try the Gu gel shot.  It was disgusting and a sticky mess, blech!!!  Why did I do that for the first time on a race?!  From now on I'm definitely sticking with the blocks.  They are actually pretty tasty.  Maybe the gel had something to do with the nausea.
• Running sometimes takes me to a weird emotional place.  I kept thinking about a friend from my days at UW.  She died a few years back, complications from anorexia I believe.  We lost touch long before that, and I regret not keeping in contact with her.  I choked up a bit thinking about how I missed her.
• I made a pit stop at mile 10 and my energy dropped off a cliff after that.  I knew I could finish the next 3 miles but it became much more of a slog after that point.
• The last mile or so it hurt just as much to walk as it did to run, so that gave me a little motivation to rock it out till the end.
• It was pretty quiet at the finish line.  I kept imagining all the cheering and celebration that would be going on.  I was somewhere in the last 1/6th of runners, so I guess they'd all packed up and left by then.
• Training is over, yay!!! At times training was really cool and it was gratifying to be able to go on longer runs and feel great, and other times it felt like a huge burden.
• Now that I have run the longest distance I ever care to, I want to spend some time focusing on speed.  For most of my runs I just take a leisurely pace and enjoy it.  I think it would do me some good to try track workouts or intervals and see what I can accomplish.