Recap

I started out on my 1/2 marathon training determined to run the race or at least some part of it.  Early on my knee told me it was not going to happen.  Having to go down the stairs stiff legged and scared that I was going to cringe from pain really made it clear that running at that time was not worth it!  I think I went about training wrong or perhaps injured myself in some way, not sure.  But after awhile I gave in and decided I was just going to race walk it.  To be honest I am glad that happened.  It is sort of cool to walk a marathon and have runners right next to you.  I am 100% sure that the runners did not think it was cool to have someone walking beside them, but oh well.  I also learned that it is my sport.  Don't get me wrong, I am going to give running a try again and I hope to run my next 1/2 marathon but I also plan to racewalk another 1/2 marathon.  But I am proud of my 11:30 pace walking miles and I am curious if I can ever get close to an 11 min. pace.  I passed a man walking and a woman run walking beside him.  I then heard him say "I am just trying to figure out if she is legal" so I turned around and said "Are you a racewalker???"  Sure enough he was and he did think I was legal (racewalking means you have to follow certain rules in technique).  It was fun to briefly talk to him and then I took off.  Shortly after that I passed a man watching the race and he looked familiar, we both looked at each other and at the same time pointed to each other and said "you".  It was an older man from my racewalking team, that was very cool.  So I had fun, the hills killed me, oh boy I was not prepared for all of them.  I made it but they were not ok!

My favorite part was seeing Celia at the very end, the picture above is of me giving her a high five as I passed.  She gave me the motivation to finish strong.  Typically the announcer at the end says something like "here comes a walker, or speed walker (ugh, I can not stand that term)" but this time I heard "and here comes a race walker, racewalker Carrie"

So I still have 0 desire to do another full marathon, nope not for me right now.  I might think differently a year from now but right now it has 0 interest.  I saw how awful some of the full marathoners looked and really I think that 13.1 miles is good for now.  I am a few years older then when I used to do these kind of miles often and let me tell you I was wiped out yesterday.   Who knows if it was just lack of sleep from the night before or just the fact that a 1/2 marathon wears out this 36 year old, not sure!!

The most important part of the race was that I had fun!