Did-its have been few and far between over the past few months as I have been completely devoted to the following:
- Going to clinic - I've successfully completed my surgery and OB/GYN rotations, and have only one week left of my pediatrics rotation. Graduation is creeping around the corner...So. Pumped.
- Studying for clinic and my boards.
- Spending as many moments as possible with my equally busy hubby.
- Training for my first half marathon!
Since the first week of January, my older sister and I have trained for our first half marathon. I've tried to train for the 13.1 race twice before. The first attempt ended in an exacerbation of an old foot injury. The second was thwarted when my training schedule conflicted with my schedule with studying and clinic so much that I had to take a step back, put the priority to study first, and take a knee on my attempt to achieve this goal to complete a half marathon. When my sister, Jess asked me to run the Ocean City annual 5k/half marathon with her in April, my immediate reaction was to remember the saying "Third time's the charm."
And it was.
Despite the long hours in clinic, late nights studying, and some pretty far distances to drive from home to work, Jess and I made a plan to train and we stuck with it. Although we weren't running or training together, we encouraged each other daily and used the same Hal Higdon half marathon training plan as a foundation for our running schedule. As a side note - I also continued to lift weights throughout, except for cutting out the heavy squats and deadlifts in an effort to save my legs for running. It may sound crazy to some people, but I cannot wait to get into the gym this week and start squatting again! My goal is to squat 235lb by the end of the year...
This Saturday April 26, 2014, Jess and I completed our first half marathon in Ocean City with our very own, very special cheering section: my amazing husband, Jess's husband and step-son, our mom and brother (who drove 3hours that morning just to see us cross that finish line)!
Here we are the night before getting dinner at Belly Busters. Jess loves this spot, and so did we. It's a great hole-in-the-wall restaurant with fantastic crab legs, sandwiches, and fried rockfish fingers. I had a caesar chicken wrap, which was really good!
When the we set off from the starting line, our goal was simply to finish the race. We were both nervous because, as things happen, our training was a little rocky in its consistency toward the end secondary to our other priorities, e.g. SCHOOL/WORK. However, when we got started, the adrenaline set in! I can honestly say that I've never worked harder for something, nor have I ever felt a greater sense of satisfaction for an achievement. My goal was to finish at a 10min/mile pace, which would put my at a ~2hr10min finish. However, for the majority of the race I couldn't find the 2hr10min pacing group that I had my eye on at the start line. I kept pushing forward, and at mile 10 I found the group and I knew that I was on track. At mile 11, I passed the group. And from from 12-13.1 I pushed harder and harder to pass everyone in front of me. I'm pretty sure more than one person saw my burst into tears of joy randomly over the last mile. I couldn't contain myself, I was so excited that I was about to achieve this goal that I've had for the past two years. And on the last leg as I saw the finish line, I sprinted as fast as I could...and I crossed the line with a time of 2:07:36!
When Jess crossed the finish line not far behind, we hugged each other so tightly and cried because WE DID IT! We finished our first half marathon, a feat that both of us questioned throughout the four months of training whether or not we were going to make it.
And we did together, with our family cheering us on.
So now I can officially put the 13.1 sticker on my car...or my new training notebook for my next few months of training for another awesome race!
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