I'm Only Half Crazy

January 16, 2017

I'm Only Half Crazy

Yesterday was a big milestone for me; I finished my first half marathon! (I tried running one in college, but only was able to run a few miles of it and walked the rest, so I don't count it) A few weeks ago a group of friends from my fitness studio posted that they had signed up and on a whim I decided I would do it too. YOLO, right?! I don't classify myself as a runner, nor do I really enjoy it, but God has given me strong legs and I'm pretty fast all things considering....so I went for it. If I had been a little smarter I would have started training a few months ago and not just a few weeks ago. I've been doing more strength and power training lately, focusing on my fast-twitch muscles not my slow-twitch endurance muscles. I've definitely lost some of my stamina! It's really interesting to me how athleticism can be measured differently; that Usain Bolt and Lebron James are both incredible athletes, but in each of their respective arenas. So all that to say, my legs were not as prepared as they should have been yesterday to run for almost 2 hours straight.

The main reason I wanted to run was to challenge myself to do something beyond my normal scope of exercise. I've said many times in this fitness journey that God's power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Cor 12:9). And around mile 12 I had to repeat that verse to myself over and over again to push to the finish line. I am thankful that God sustained me through the whole race and I was able to finish with a 8:30 pace. Ideally I'd like to run another in under 1:45, but I don't know if I really want to sign up for another one just yet. I'm sure in a month when my knees don't hate me and I forget how monotonous it was, I'll sign up for another one. I'm a sucker for shiny race medals :)

All in all though I'm really glad I did it. I got the chance to hang out with my OTFers and get to know them better. Shout out to Kelly who ran with me the whole way and was my personal DJ! So now that I've crossed that off my fitness bucket list...up next is a sprint triathlon and then a body building competition! Ahhh! Here goes nothing...