I Ran and I Ran Fast-ish

 

I ran the fastest half-marathon of my life!!  I still can't stop smiling about this.   I've been running for a long time so to get a PR is not something I ever thought I could do.  But I beat my fastest time from twenty years ago and it felt awesome!  

I've been training hard and stacked up the miles on my long runs pretty early so I've had a few extra weeks to really feel prepared.  I've done all my runs on trails/roads around Sammamish which means a ton of steep hills so my pace has always been slower than what I'd like so I decided for my last long run I'd run along the race course which is a paved trail around Lake Sammamish and it's super flat.  I ran the ten miles almost a minute faster per mile than what I'd been doing on my previous runs and still felt great.  That's what gave me the crazy idea to go for a PR and not just try to run the race.

The night before the race I sat down and calculated that if I ran an 8:38 minute mile I could break my record half-marathon time of 1 hour and 53 minutes.  I've gotten a 1:53 in two races but those were literally twenty years ago!  Yes, those race courses weren't as flat as this one but who cares!  Like a true pro, I wrote the times on my arm so I could do my best to stay consistent.  I woke up feeling great and loved having a friend with me so I wasn't lonely at the starting line.  

 I wore an old race shirt to keep warm until the race was about to start, then tossed it in the trash before I started running.

I started strong and I finished strong.   The weather wasn't terrible although it rained on us most of the race.  At each mile marker I was within a few seconds of my predicted pace, which was so awesome to be that consistent.  I stayed with the same group of runners until about mile 10 and then people started to drag.  Right about then, my friend surprised me by showing up to cheer me on and took the photo above.  It was just the motivation I needed so I cranked up my music, prayed, and picked up my pace.  I felt Lindsey right beside me.  She was always my favorite running partner.

My much younger friend Tami, finished about a minute in front of me and here's her cute family cheering on the runners.  

At the finish and I was still feeling good but so glad I was done!  I'd been following that girl behind me the entire race but she started to drag when I dug deep and passed her.  Boy did that feel good :)

I got to ring the bell!!

Here's me at Target a couple hours later, sporting my race medal.  Yes, I was that proud that I wore it all day!  I wasn't even sore the next day and that felt like a huge win too.  Hip, hip, hooray for old ladies doing hard things!