Achieved Another Goal



Yesterday I was able to achieve another goal I set for myself. I started running 6 months ago and have run in 2 5K races and an 8K Mud Run. I saw the VA Beach Rock-N-Roll Half Marathon advertised in an issue of Runner’s World and Teresa told me that she thought I could finish it. I started really training for it in mid-July and registered in early August. It was my first national race and will not be my last.

There were around 20,000 people running and there was energy at the starting line. I felt it but didn’t care because I’m not a morning person. Teresa and I got up at 5 am and Teresa dropped me off at the start at 6am. The race started at 7am and I started running at 7:30am. I was in corral 19 of 24. Every 45 seconds to a minute a corral started to avoid too many people running at one time. This was a different type of race because just about every mile there were bands playing music. It was kind of neat.

My goal was to complete the 13.1 mile race without stopping or walking. I went down to a trot a couple of times but never stopped. I saw people walking after less than a mile and that surprised me but they may have different goals than I. I averaged a little over a 12 minute mile and completed the race at 2 hours 41 minutes. I wanted to finished strong and was able to sprint to the finish line. Words cannot describe my feeling at the time other than jazzed and that really doesn’t give it justice.