The Middle Half

First of all let me tell you that the 2 pictures that I downloaded for this post would have taken 30 to 40 minutes in the old days to load. 7 seconds!!!! I am SO excited!!!

Anyway on to the race. Last year, I was at a baby shower the night of the Middle Half. My friend Norma was there and she was telling me that she had run the race. I was in total awe. I mean, who runs like that? No one I knew, or so I thought. Turns out running is huge around here. She inspired, motivated, and even made me a little jealous. I made up my mind at that moment that I would be a part of the next half marathon. I mentioned my new goal to Joe and he said, "Do you know how far a half marathon is?" I said, "Yes, (only because I had googled it earlier that day) I do, Mr. Smarty Pants. Want to do it with me?" Laughter ensues. I didn't forget my goal, although I did nothing to prepare for it either. When signups rolled arou nd, I quickly forked over my money and thought, "Well, I am not wasting 50 bucks so I better get started training." I got a couple of great books and voraciously read them. Meanwhile another great friend, Becca, started running and regaling us with her achievements and I was sooo in. I have mentioned earlier that I am not an athlete. Running was foreign to me. In fact when I went to get new shoes, they about fell over laughing at my tennis shoes. They were 10 years old, weighed about 5 ounces each and were so nasty black that even I didn't remember what color they originally were. I started running down the driveway. One of the boys would usually accompany me and wait patiently while I huffed and puffed my way down the driveway and road. A few months later, Joe decided that my new form of torture might be good for him as well. Off to the shoe store to spend another $150 bucks, (man this is getting expensive!) and sign up for the race. There were so many nights that we would go to the track at school and run in the dark after he got home from work and the little ones were put to bed. Running on a track, especially in the dark, is REALLY BORING. But the miles had to be put in. One night I found myself on the track running at 10:00 at night, by myself because Joe was out of town. I kept pushing myself thinking, this is it. You have 2 weeks left girl. I ran 10 miles that night. I found out that I had more in myself than I ever thought possible.
The morning of the race came and it was cold. And crowded. This was the biggest race we had ever run in. It was so exciting to be there with so many other runners. I made sure that I visited the restroom before it got too crowded. With 20 minutes left before the race, we both thought that it might be a good idea to go again. Unfortunately, we didn't agree on where to meet. I got out, met my mom and Parker and they said they hadn't seen Joe. We waited, and waited, the gun for the wheelchair racers went off and I thought, "He has got to be in the line somewhere. Nobody takes that long to use the bathroom." So I headed over to the line looking everywhere for him. Of course he wasn't there. He was still in the bathroom along with 100 other men. The gun went off and here he comes running for the line. "Why didn't you wait for me?" I calmy explained that he was taking too long. ;) The bad thing was, he was still wearing his watch and sweats that he didn't want to throw on the side of the road. He hung his pants over the fence and we just hoped that they would be there when we got back.
We crossed the line and tried to keep it an even tempo even though we were so excited and the runners were all pushing past us. We kept an even pace and by the time that we got to mile 6 we still felt awesome. We decided that we once again had to stop at the porta potty. Hey, I've had 7 kids, I'm not sure what his excuse was! ;) Just kidding hon. It took us about 8 minutes because only 1 of the porta potty's was functional. There were 2, but the other one was occupied the WHOLE time we stood in line, by only one person. When we started back up, our legs felt like jello, so we determined we wouldn't stop any more. Miles 6-10 were great, tried to pick up the pace a bit to make up for the lost time. At about mile 10 my left knee started KILLING me. I don't know what made it start hurting so bad, but I know that I would have probably stopped and walked if it hadn't been for Joe's encouragement. He was SO awesome. It was so nice to have somebody to run with. We decided that we would run the whole thing together. Around mile 12, I was ready to cry. I finally saw the stadium where we would finish and it seemed to never get closer! Finally we rounded the corner and came into a crowd of people. Their yelling and encouragement really pushed me to the line. It felt so AWESOME to cross that line and see my mom and Parker, (and put ice cold towels on my knees!)
My mom got all of my brothers and sis-in-laws together to make us a poster. They live all over the U.S., so that took some forethought. It is the best poster ever! It seriously was my motivator around mile 11.
Here is us after the race with our sweet poster and medals.

Here is us crossing the finish line together!

Our official results were: Joe 79 out of 94 in his age division

1069 out of 2000 overall

pace: 11:23

chip time:2:28:57

Lisa 93 out of 148 in age division

1068 out of 2000 overall

pace 11:23

chip time: 2:28: 57

We like to think that if we had not stopped for a bathroom break we may have done it in 2:20. We sent Parker over to the fence and he found Joe's pants. He was so excited to not have to buy another pair!

I will definately be doing this again, although you always have to make the goal bigger and better, so I think the next one will be the full marathon in Nashville in the spring. Yes, hon, I do know how long that is!