My family with me after the race. There’s no way I could be doing this without my wonderful husband!

Here’s a post I didn’t think I would ever write. On Thursday night I decided to run the Little Rock Half. I had planned on running in the relay but that was it. One of my friend’s told me that if you run the first leg of the relay you can also run in the Half. I knew John wasn’t running in the Half and we had already paid for his registration fee. So, I just put his chip on my shoe and his bib on my shirt. I’ve never used someone else’s registration before but I honestly did not know when I registered him that I would be well enough to run the half. (If I would have I would have registered myself!)

I felt good. Shannon started with me and we held an 8:15 to 8:20 pace for the first 8 miles. Around mile 6 we met up with Kem and Tish. They were running miles 6-26. I split off from them around mile 9 when the relay and Half Marathon separated. So I ran the last 4 on my own. I tried to pick up the pace. My goal IF POSSIBLE was to break 1:50. Of course, I would have been happy with just completing it since this race was just 7 weeks after a c-section. But you know me. I have to have my running goals to push me.

My official time was 1:47:07. That is an 8:11 min. mile. Not my fastest Half- last year I ran a 1:36 there. But it wasn’t my slowest. (In 2009, I ran a 2:12 Half when I paced John.) I am very sore. I plan to take tomorrow and Tuesday off for sure and I’ll see how I feel on Wednesday. 6 weeks from tomorrow is Boston!!! Ready of not… Hopefully I’ll be ready. I’d LOVE to break 4 hours but I’m not quite sure how realistic that is. 26 is a lot further than I’m used to running right now. I still need a few LONG runs under my belt. We’ll see…

Now it’s time for a hot bath! I’ve already iced twice today and rolled!

~Runner Mom