I can't believe it's over. I am officially a 1/2 marathoner. All of the training and hard work paid off more than I ever imagined. My goal going into the training was to finish between 2:10 and 2:15 which means I had to average about a 10 minute mile the entire time. By the time race weekend arrived, I was really hoping to finish in about 2:05.
We headed to Memphis around 2pm Friday afternoon. We stayed with my best friend in Marion on Friday night. Kristin was running the race also. Friday night we went to Pete and Sam's to carb up for the race. I had lots of bread and lasagna. We were up early on Saturday morning just trying to get ourselves prepared. The weather was perfect for a race. It was about 47 degrees and partly sunny. My parents met us in Marion and we finally headed into Memphis about 7am. We finally got downtown and to the start around 7:30. We hung around a little bit and then finally about 7:50 I made my way to my corral. I started in corral 7 so it was actually about 8:12 before I ever crossed the starting line. It took about 2-3 miles to actually get out of the worst part of the crowd. I started off a little slow and kept telling myself to not overdo it even though I felt really good. I am not a very good pacer, so I was scared I would start fast and run out of energy early on. About 2 1/2 miles in I caught up to and passed the 4:10 marathon pacers that were at the front of my corral. At this point it finally hit me that I could actually finish really close to the 2 hour mark. I passed my parents again at mile 3 (Scott, Clint, & Connor (Kristin's husband and son) had decided breakfast was more important so they had gone to eat). Luckily they were able to keep track of us on the St. Jude Marathon website. It updated when we hit 3.1, 6.2, 10, and the finish. It also gave them estimated finish times based on our pace when we crossed each marker. I crossed the 3.1 mile mark at 0:28:33 which was a 9:12 mile pace. About mile 4 we entered the St. Jude Campus. If the sight of parents and families of the kids of St. Jude doesn't move you, I am not sure what will. It was AWESOME!!
I crossed the 6.2 mile mark at 0:56:23 which was a 8:58 mile pace. I was still feeling pretty good and hadn't really realized that I had sped up any. I think the biggest help was that the racers were becoming more spread out and it wasn't nearly as congested.
Around mile 9 I started to realize just how bad my feet were hurting, so I grabbed a drink of water and some GU and kept going. I noticed that I was starting to slow down, but not by much. The best I could tell I was still keeping about a 9:20 mile pace.
I crossed the 10 mile mark at 1:31:38 which was a 9:19 mile pace. I knew at this point finishing around 2:01-2:03 was looking realistic if I could just keep up the pace. My body was starting to hurt really bad and I kept asking myself "What in the world was I thinking wanting to run a 1/2 marathon??" and "It's only a 5K left...You can run a 5K in your sleep...just not with legs that feel like they are about to give out on you."
From Mile 11 to 12 was the worst. Then I hit mile 12 and it dawned on me that I was almost finished. Only 1/2 mile until the marathoners split off from us and we were on the home stretch. At about 12 1/2 miles we turned the corner and could see Autozone Park (the finish line was inside the park on the baseball field). Something inside clicked and I was able to dig down deep and pick up the pace to the finish. Once I passed the mile 13 marker, I actually entered the stadium and was on the home stretch. I hit my stop watch about the time I crossed the finish line. It said 2:00:06 so I figured it was actually off a little from my official time. I saw my parents in the stands, waived, got my medal and a foil blanket and was headed towards the water and the stairs. As I started up the stairs I spotted Scott in the stands and yelled "2 hours" to which he responded "and 6 seconds." Somehow I had timed it just right and my stopwatch and my official time were the exact same. Thanks to the tracking system Scott was able to see my finish time withing seconds of me actually crossing the finish line.
My body hurt pretty bad after it was over, but I got lots of water a little food and some rest while we waited on our friends to finish. Now that I have had a couple of days to recover, I think I would do it again. Not anytime soon, but I would run another one.
The St. Jude 1/2 Marathon is an awesome race to run and supports an awesome cause!! I recommend it to anyone looking for a fun race. It has some rolling hills, but is not too hilly.
Official Stats:
FINISH: 2:00:06 - 9:10 min/mile pace
Overall Finish: 1264 out of 6783
Gender Finish: 469
Age Division Finish: 103/782
5K Finish: 0:28:33 - 9:12 min/mile pace
10K Finish: 0:56:23 - 8:58 min/mile pace (Ranked 116 in age division)
10M: 1:31:38 - 9:19 min/mile pace
