Monumental Marathon 2017.

 

I did it! I finished my half marathon two weeks ago!

  To be really honest, my only goals for the race was to finish and raise at least $50 for World Vision. To physically get my body across the finish line. Anything more than that would be a bonus. So, imagine my surprise when the entire thing ended up being a ton of fun and not nearly as difficult as I had built it up to be in my head! I ran the entire thing, didn't have any pain, and didn't feel as if I had to "muscle through" any parts of it.

  To clarify, I'm a super average person. I have an average fitness level, I'm not really competitive, I'm a slow runner, and I don't really love doing hard things. I know that literally thousands of people run half marathons all the time and its not a challenge for them. I don't fall into that camp. When I set this goal back in May, it was actually a big goal for me. One I knew I'd have to work pretty hard for.

  The training leading up to the race was one million times more challenging for me than the actual race. Maybe everyone feels that way? I had some longer runs that were just really hard and some physical things pop up that made me anxious about upping my miles. Mentally, it took time to not psych myself out about distance and endurance. I think that's why, on race day, I was so surprised to find that the actual race was fun and easy! All my training added up and paid off and had truly prepared me.

Duh. I know that's common sense and why we train for things, blah blah blah. Its one thing to know that and another to experience it!

Long story short, I loved running 13.1 miles. I want to do it again next fall! Running with World Vision and helping to raise $600,000 with my teammates was the best decision I made in all of my training. I was super slow (full marathoners finished before me!), and didn't care at all. I was ready to get up and run the next day! Setting hard goals and achieving them is such a good feeling.

If you're a super normal person like me and want to train for your first half marathon, here are my tips:

• Use this training series and build in a few 'grace' weeks (that is, start the program a few weeks early so if anything comes up, you have time to catch up before your race)

• Get the right shoes. They'll cost a lot of money, but they are absolutely worth it.

• Find a few people who are excited and will talk about your training with you. Maybe they'll even run with you!

• Have a bigger purpose. Running with World Vision to help bring clean water to people in Africa absolutely gave me a purpose in the entire thing- especially when things got hard and I wanted to quit.

• Try a new podcast on your long run. I was super surprised to find that a couple new true crime podcasts made my 9-10 milers FLY by!

• Do it. Set a big/hard goal and just do it. 

Ps. You can still donate to my World Vision page here! 

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