Running and New "real" friends

This was my big weekend, what I've been training for 16 weeks for, our Half Marathon!! 13.1 miles!

My "virtual" training partner and friend Christi was heading down Friday with her youngest, Gunner, and her hubby Brian, Friday night.

In case you have missed it, I "met" Christi while I was still in the hospital pregnant with Mallory. Our stories are oddly similar. She started leaking fluid at about week 27 and spent 6 weeks in the hospital with Gunner born at 33 weeks 1 day, just like Mallory, exactly 10 months to the day before Mallory. They were both around 4 pounds and had very similar issues and time in the NICU, 35 days for bean, 39 for Gunner. As we continued to get to know one another through our blogs and preemie boards we just had more similarities and our husbands seemed similar too, both enjoyed hunting, both born in July of the same year, etc...

Christi, Brian and Gunner came over to the house around lunch on Saturday. We visited, had lunch at Moonlight and stopped at Whitakers.

Here's a few pictures from the afternoon.









We then headed to Evansville to pick up Christi's race packet and eat some pasta to continue the carb load prior to the race.

We headed back home and I got all my gear laid out and ready because I was going to have to leave the house at 4:45 am!

For a while I was worried about rain on race day but as it crept nearer the weather looked clear, but two things were worrisome, the forecasted heat and wind. Perfect temps on race day would be high 40's to low 60's max.....at 4:45 the temp was already 69. They even canceled the full marathon because of the heat.

With excitement and nerves we got lined up in our pace corral, yep, like cattle. We lined up in the rear because I know I was slow and even though Christi was faster, we were sticking together. We had matching shirts made:





We actually got a lot of positive comments from our shirts, more than I thought we would.

Here we are pre-race!



My fuel belt does nothing for my figure, but I'm glad I had it!!

The first 5 miles or so were pretty good. The course was way hillier than I anticipated, and with the heat and wind, my slow self was even slower!

But we trudged along running and then walking some. Mile 8 and 9 went by and we were super excited to see mile 10! Just a 5k left to go! Mile 11 came into view and I felt a blister on my foot pop. Oww. That last 2.1 miles took forever! Walking made my feet hurt less but made my hip hurt more. Thanks to Christi, she helped push us through to run across the finish line!

Ben, Mallory, Brian and Gunner were waiting for us and cheering near the finish. It was all quite emotional, I shed a few tears! Such an amazing feeling!!

Here we are afterwards...I just wanted to sit, lol!! Our official time was 3:14:06, not great, but hoping for under 3 hours next time!




It was a great weekend and we've already planned our next one, in September in Michigan! Now the goal is to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks!

I celebrated my Achievement with a massage on Monday. Awesome! Sunday was a little rough but was feeling better by early evening. Just tired and sore.

Today we are celebrating our 8th Anniversary and Tucker's 8th birthday!! Ben cooked us dinner!

Here's a few more pictures of Mallory because I know that's all you really want to see!!













- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone