Half Marathon #2!

This past Sunday I ran my 2nd half marathon, the RunRaleigh Half. Although I had officially already ran a half marathon, this one was more of the "real deal." No Disney characters to stop and take pictures with, no magic from running through Disney World, no exciting distractions...just me, my ipod, and 13.1 miles. Oh, and 1,000 other people. 

Can you find me? 

Hint: I'm the creep in the blue in the left corner...

This was the first ever RunRaleigh half and I really liked it. It was really small (especially compared to the Disney Princess Half - there were 20,000 people for that!) and the course wasn't too bad either. We started in Cameron Village, one of the local shopping areas, and then continued on out past NC State, Pullen Park, Downtown Raleigh, and lastly the Raleigh greenways. 

Mile 4: Clearly I was still excited at this point...or maybe it was just encouraging seeing my mom and step-dad :)

The last few miles started to get tough. The sun was out and it was hot! There were also a few hills towards the end and my legs just did not want to move. But, I pushed on through it and ended up finishing at 2 hours exactly! Although personally I think it may have been under 2 hours... ;)

I set a PR (although that wasn't too hard to do) and it felt SO good! I really wanted to get 2 hours or a little under 2 hours, and I did it! I didn't really set out to really push myself in the beginning though, I was just running it to see what I could do. I started out at that pace and it felt good so I just kept with it! I know it's not even super fast...but it's good enough for me, for now. ;)

Lovely awkward pose weeee. 

Receiving the medal is the best part of the whole race. :)

And now for the results!

Official Time: 2:01:02 - 13.1 miles
Garmin Time: 2:00:24 - 13.2 miles (not completely sure where that extra .1 mile came from?)

And as far as rankings go...

35th out of 91 women aged 20-24 (top 38.5%)
8th out of 27 women aged 22 (top 30%)
128th out of all 548 women (top 23%)

My step dad calculated all of this for me and I've gotta say, for my first "real" half-marathon, I'm pretty proud :)

Now about that full marathon I signed up for in October....I think I'm going to die.

Let the training begin!

B.Hines