My First Half Marathon! Woodlands Half Marathon Race Recap

I should have done this sooner so that I would not forget details, but I will do my best to recap my very first half marathon experience. To me, I was just so proud to make a goal and actually accomplish that goal. To know that I could run just over 13 miles in just under 2 1/2 hours is beyond cool to me.

That morning I woke early, I think around 5, because the race started at 7 am and I had to drive about 35 minutes or so to get there. I took a shower. Some of you may think, what is the point of a shower. It helped me wake up and just get moving. I had gotten all my gear together the night before so I didn’t have too much to get together. I made some Nuun Water to put in my bottles for my fuel belt, then put 3 packets of Sport beans in my pack and headed out.

On my drive over, I had a Bolthouse Coffee Protein drink and tried to eat a little bar, but didn’t eat much of the bar. The morning was cold!! As I drove the outside temp was 37!! To a Texan, that is cold!! I ate one pack of the sport beans in the car before I got out. I suited up and headed out to find the start line. I wore long sleeves, a running skirt, and my compression socks that I hadn’t worn before(best choice ever).

I was going to try and meet up with my sister in law who was also running, but since she is faster than me, we were in different corrals. So I stood and froze with the rest of the slower crew 🙂 We all stood just shaking and trying to warm our muscles up.

Once the race started, it was nice to run around people who were at the same pace as me. It kept me from trying to go out too fast. I was able to run 4 miles straight without stopping to walk. Definitely a plus in my book. I walked while I ate another pack of sport beans, took in some water and once finished started to run again.

I ran a lot more than I thought I would. I stopped again at the 8th mile to have more sport beans and just tried to keep hydrating. I walked some, but the longer I went the less I wanted to walk because it almost hurt more to walk than run. At about mile 10, my legs were starting to burn so I just kept running, one so that I could be done faster and two because walking was harder than running at that point.

The last stretch where we came back in to the crowds, I stepped it up and just tried to push myself to finish. My legs were done by the time I finished. It was so hard to even walk up stairs to get our shirt. They had food, but I just wanted to get home.

I have to say I am proud of my accomplishment. And funny enough, I was ready to sign up for my next half!! I was crazy sore the next day, but I had to put on my son’s birthday party. I think it actually helped that I was up and moving most of the day because otherwise, I would have been sore for days and days. By Tuesday my soreness was gone!! It was an amazing experience and am so glad that I have added this page to my history book 🙂 Oh, and the medal was sooo cool!

My splits:
1-10:01
2-10:01
3-10:17
4-10:34
5-12:16
6-10:44
7-12:29
8-11:32
9-10:35
10-12:01
11-11:37
12- 11:34
13-11:23

To anyone out there who thinks they can’t do something like this.. You CAN!!! I put my mind to it and stuck to a training plan and accomplished a goal that I never imagined I would have done even a year ago. I look forward to my next half that I have in three weeks!!