Run Forest Run!

This weekend I accomplished something I had been working towards for the past 2 months. I ran the Richmond Half-Marathon! A big group of us headed down to Richmond on Friday to spend the night. There were 8 of us running the marathon and then 3 people came to be our cheerleaders. We carbo-loaded on Friday night with pasta and were up at 6:00 am to get to the race.

Pre-Race

At the starting line

I have been working hard for this. I gave up all junk food and sweets about a month ago, was drinking one diet coke a day (a major sacrifice) and running between 3 and 10 miles every day. I was as ready as I was ever going to be. I had a goal to finish by 2 hours and 15 minutes and I ended up finishing in 2 hours 4 minutes. I thought that mile 8 and 9 were never going to end but they did and I made it to the finish without ever stopping.

Post-Race

The real adventure didn't start until after the marathon though. We split up into 3 different groups. One of the guys Jordan, that had come to watch, and I were in a car together. We got stuck in traffic for about 2 hours and by this time I was starving. It was a really frustrating situation but luckily nothing was going to put me in a bad mood after that run so we were laughing the whole time. We finally made it to a restaurant and met up with another group. I ordered a nice big cheeseburger and sweet potato fries with a diet coke of course.

Cheerleaders!

From the left: Kristen, Jordan, Me, Janae (we stayed at her apartment) and Nicole

Our three cheerleaders: Kristen, Nicole, and Jordan wanted to do a little sight seeing so the four of us plus another runner Jen went off to see the sights of Richmond. Let's just say I was not in the greatest condition for much sight seeing and therefore can't really tell you what we saw but I have to say the scenery was beautiful.

The Confederate Fish

Maymont Mansion

We finally made it back to DC around 7:00 but then Jordan and I had to return the car we had borrowed and we also had to drop another runners things off at her house. After getting lost multiple times through out the day we were ready to be done and get home. But of course that wasn't going to happen. We ended up getting lost on the way to her house and then after finally finding it both our phones died leaving us with no GPS to get to the person's house to drop off the car. After realizing another girl had left her phone in the car we made some calls and finally made it to the house. Let's just say it made for a very very long day.

My Sweet Roommate

I finally made it home and took a nice LONG shower before cozying up in sweats and climbing into bed. I had slept on the floor the night before the race so this bed of mine felt mighty good! To top it all off I came home to some beautiful flowers from my family.

Richmond

Thank you to everyone who texted and called through out the day. It made it so much better when I knew how proud people were of me. I can't wait till I can run another one!