Informal planning, an injury, congestion, and a half-marathon..

I started training for my “first and last and one and only” half marathon with no formal plan, running twice a week: Thursday Crossfit Endurance classes (various intervals, usually around 3 miles total distance), and a Saturday “long run” with increasing mileage as time went on.

I only added additional weekly training runs about five weeks out from the race under the advisement of my coach, adding two additional runs of 3-4 miles on top of one day of interval training and one long run. Aside from these runs helping me become more physically comfortable with running, they were also to help me become more mentally and emotionally prepared. I have had a history of crying on every single run during my training..

This new and logical idea lasted about two weeks until I injured my hip, missing my last scheduled long-run and maxing my training at 9 miles. Due to the injury, I also missed four other shorter training runs (yet did fill in some Crossfit in there; just because I couldn’t run didn’t mean my body was non-functional..).  I did manage a 5-mile run the weekend before the race; an uncomfortable, unhappy 3 miles followed by a tolerable 2.

I developed an awful sore throat the Wednesday before the race, complete with my right tonsil encompassing half of the back of my throat.  I popped zinc and Vitamin C like it was going of style, downed massive amounts of hot tea and honey, and cooked up a huge crockpot of homemade chicken soup, finishing it all in a few days. The sore throat was gone in three days, but the cold symptoms spread, leaving a severe head cold and major congestion just days before my race.

The night before my “first-and-last-half”, I tried to relax in a hot bath, soaking in Epsom salt, baking soda, lavender oil, and eucalyptus. I went to bed at 9:00, turning on my makeshift humidifier (think crockpot with a perforated pizza pan atop), adding eucalyptus and other oils to try to soothe me to sleep. I smothered my feet in Vicks and covered them in cotton socks, also covering my chest, just as my dad used to do when we had colds as children.

I set my race-day outfit out, and was just hoping for the best.

Rocking my RockCity sparkly skirt, new Shwings (the cute guy at the expo promised me a 5 minute PR), ProCompression socks, and inov8s.

I woke up the morning of the race still unable to comfortably breathe.

How many more excuses can I come up with to justify the results of the race before it even happened?

If you have been following any of my training thus far, you know that I have had severe mental anguish with running and training for this race. Pain and tears and mental weakness were all too common in my training. I averaged about 11:00/mile pace for all of my runs 6 miles and up, with my last long run of 9 miles at an 11:45/mile; the only long run that did not have tears. I set a conservative goal of finishing my half marathon in 2:45, with a stretch goal of 2:30. The goal was to finish but wanted to set some expectation.

I set my alarm for 4:45, yet was wide awake at 4:00, hyped up with excitement, fear, anxiety, snot. It was now or never.

I made my way to Downtown Detroit, had a slight parking freak-out when the road to my workplace was closed (free parking in the City is a nice perk of my job, a mile from the start).

I was riding solo in this race, but with no less than 25,000 participants across all of the events, the City was booming before the sun came up.

As a blogger, I am a huge fan of pictures, but will admit I did not capitalize on the awesome photo opportunities that were in front of me for most of this race, but I do have a few to share! (Though if you want to read an extremely comprehensive recap, please check out local blogger, Jeff at Detroit Runner!)

What is most unusual about this race is that it starts in Detroit, Michigan, United States, and then crosses an international border to run through the streets of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, racing over the Ambassador Bridge, and coming back home via the world’s only international underwater mile as part of a race.

Running across an international border with 11,000 people surrounding you during sunrise is a surreal feeling.

The course continued into Canada, with one of the border patrol agents cheering us on and letting us know all the free beer and Tim Horton’s donuts that were waiting for us (not sure if this was true..). It was not until I hit mile 7 that it hit me that I had been running over an hour. I was so wrapped up in the scenery and the atmosphere that it didn’t even feel like running. It was peaceful, and quite awesome. Yes, I just used the word peaceful to describe my run.

Mile 7 marked the entry to the underwater mile heading back into the States via way of a dim, humid, sticky tunnel.

The run continued to be serene up until I saw the mile 10 marker. And then my body said, “nope.” Up to this point, I had a 10:51/mile pace (I did not look at any point in the race, but found out later based on the tracker).

My legs physically did not want to move anymore.

Each step seemed to be more difficult than the one before. I was listening to the Girls Gone WOD podcast Bonus Episode, which was less than 30 minutes, and knew I had only this podcast to get through and then it would be just about the finish-line. I ran.. and walked. And ran a little more.. and walked a bit more. If you asked me right afterwards, I would tell you I walked the entire last three miles. Yet the happy little GPS begged to differ, clocking my last mile at under a 9:00/mile.

This race had no tears of frustration or pain. And up until 10 miles, it barely felt like I was racing at all; I was touring the beautiful cities of Detroit and Windsor with thousands of other people, each person celebrating their victories and gathering together to culminate their training efforts. My eyes did water slightly at mile 12 out of sheer elation and pride of what I was about to accomplish.

I bolted (okay, maybe not bolted, but I did not have to crawl), and ran past the finish-line proudly.

I collected my race medal..

..and my poor jello legs searched for a random stranger to take a proud picture for me. 😉

It wasn’t until about half an hour later when a friend texted me to ask how I did that I actually looked at my time.

UN-freaking-REAL.

I feel like I have so much more to say about how the race went or my feelings and emotions and how this has impacted me as an athlete, but I am still in a bit of disbelief that I have accomplished an amazing feat! I cannot put into words everything that I want to say and everything I am feeling. I had a blast and think it was one of the best experiences I have ever had.

I am overwhelmed, overjoyed, proud, sore! I have had the most unbelievable amount of support from those around me, constantly pushing me and encouraging me throughout this process, from my Crossfit box and coaches to the amazing network of bloggers and social media friends never doubting that I could do it.

I cannot believe that I ran a half marathon.