Illinois Half Marathon

I accomplished my second half marathon last Saturday here in Champaign-Urbana. I completed the run in 2 hours & 2 minutes - 8 minutes faster than my time at the Fox Cities Half five years ago.

After the Fox Cities Half I swore I would never run those 13.1 miles ever again. You know you should never say never. The accomplishment of this race is dedicated to (blamed on) my loving husband, Jarrod. He signed me up. Listened to me whine. Pushed me to train. Listened to me complain. Found running partners for me. Watched Cadence during my long runs on Saturdays. And most of all, he believed in me.

During my training for this race I never wore a watch. My plan for race day was to finish so I could get my Saturdays back from the long annoying training runs. I started the race with a 9:33 per mile pace group since that was the time I had been doing right after Cadence was born last year. I guess that pace was a bit slow for me since at one point the friend I was running with asks, "You are working, RIGHT?"

When we hit the 10 mile mark I eagerly looked at my friend if she wanted to speed up. We had talked about this being the point that we would break away from the pace group. We only had a 5k left. She told me to go ahead. And I did. It was nice to let my legs speed up to the pace they wanted to go. When the last mile came I thought to myself "this mile is for my training. For all those missed Saturdays with Jarrod & Cadence. For all the lunch runs when I would have rather been doing something else."

My new PR just shows what someone can do with a little pressured training from a loved one. Thanks honey!