Yesterday morning I completed my 6th Cowtown Half-Marathon and my 12th overall. The amazing part of this accomplishment (at least to me!) is that I am 5 months post partum. AMC was born October 2nd and since that day, I have fallen in love with my son (and husband all over again) recovered from my c-section, did a couple of 5K runs, and struggled with not only finding motivation to lose weight again but to figure out how to workout now that my sweet boy is here. It was a little disheartening to go through the up and down of emotions that came with those recent struggles after all the success I had pre-pregnancy (in my weight loss and "becoming an athlete" journey).
Going into this race, I was really apprehensive because I have not put in the workouts or miles that I should have. Because of this, I decided to do the best I could and make sure there was not a DNF (Did not finish) next to my name on the list of results and to get my finisher's medal.
I attempted to make sure I got plenty of sleep Saturday night by getting in bed by 9:30 pm since we were going to need to be up at 4 am. AMC decided he wanted to get up around midnight and 3:30 pm to eat instead of sleeping through the night like he had been doing. Needless to say when I got out of bed at 4:00 am, I was still pretty sleepy. I got all my race gear together (spibelt, Shot bloks, mp3 player, heartrate monitor, race bib), my clothes and flip-flops for after the race as well as everything for AMC and ARP. We then headed over to Fort Worth for the race.
When we got to Fort Worth, we met up with my friend RR and her boyfriend JA. The three of us headed to our starting corrals and SC (my husband) headed to get in position to get pictures of us as we came across the starting line. While waiting for the the start, I warmed up and did some stretching and prayed that I would finish in one piece! The gun went off and we slowly moved towards the starting line and then we were off!
RR and I (JA went ahead at his own pace) took off at a slow run and ran through Mile 1. We walked Mile 2 and took off jogging for Mile 3. After Mile 3, we would pick a point and walk to it and then run to a certain point. Around mile 6 we headed down into the Stockyards and decided to walk through it because it was paved with bricks (running on bricks does not feel very good by the way). We were still feeling pretty good with how we were doing. Once we got through the Stockyards and were headed up Main Street into Downtown Fort Worth, we started walking to a light then running to the next light. As you are going into Downtown Fort Worth (which is a little before the Mile 9 marker) you go up a pretty steep bridge which both RR and I decided we were going to push through and run up (which we did!). We then continued our run to a light, walk to a light pattern through Downtown. As we came out of the other side of downtown, we passed the 10 Mile marker. I told RR that we got this because all that was left was an "Easy Cheesy 5K." We walked Mile 11, 12 and half of 13 and then picked ourselves up and ran through to the finish! As we were coming into the finish, SC was there with AMC and ARP cheering us on.
We finished in 3:40 and JA finished in about 3:30. It was so great having RR with me throughout the race. She is an amazing running buddy because we just feed off each other's energy and encourage one another to keep going.
Today, my muscles are a little sore but nothing that lots of water and a little bit of movement will not take care of. I am SO proud of how I did (even though it is not my best finishing time) because I kept going and did not give up. I may have struggled the last couple months to find my "old" motivated self but I have it back. Now, its time to continue getting this weight off and work on my speed again so that I can continue on my path to running a sub 2 hour half-marathon in December and my long term goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon by the time I am 35.
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