The Phoenix Half

Yesterday morning I ran the Phoenix half marathon with my sister-in-law Claire. I was supposed to run it with my dad too, but he went ahead and showed me up and ran the full ;) He is such an animal! It was such a beautiful day and a really fun race. I was a little annoyed because the last bus leaving for the starting line was scheduled to leave a 5:00 a.m. and the race didn't start until 6:30. But it ended up not be too bad. I think Claire and I spent about 40 minutes at the starting line just standing in line at the bathrooms. We talked to some really nice girls from Redlands, CA. Their husbands were both in their last year of med school and they were talking about upcoming match day. I can't believe that was us three years ago! My how time fly's. Anyway, before the race started their were fireworks and the national anthem and then we were off.

There were SO MANY PEOPLE running. Over 3,600 just running the half alone. Each US state was represented and a ton of different countries. It was pretty cool. The beginning of every race is always so fun, lots of adrenaline and kind of crazy. It takes a good mile and a half to two miles to get through people and to settle into a pace. I am proud and over the moon to report that this was my fastest race yet! I've never broken 2 hours and I came in at 1 hour 55 minutes and 56 seconds average pace 8:51. I am just so happy about it! I'm sore today, but I am still so happy about the results. Both Claire and my Dad got their personal best as well so it was a good day.

I woke up at 3:45 am (gross!) and after I was ready I headed to my parents house where my awesome dad had a smoothie waiting for me. Then Claire drove us out to Mesa to catch our bus to the starting line.

Giddy school girls riding the bus

Freezing at the starting line

Where am I? The one waving like a spaz! Claire caught this pic of me right after I came through the finish line.

Done! Claire and I had a great time walking around the finish line and filling up our bags with all sorts of random goodies. We ate lots kneeders bread and I drank some delicious muscle milk. It was a pretty great post race party.

Oh ya, and the Chick Fil A cow was there. You all know how much I like chick fil a. And I won a free chicken sandwich so that was pretty great!

Claire and I tried to leave but the parking lot was such a mess that we decided to cheer my dad in! It was good to get a post run pic.

They printed out your race results for you which was awesome! I know I didn't run the race like crazy fast, but it's crazy to think that 989 people were faster than me. And the fasted in my division ran it in 1 hour 18 minutes!! That is just insane to me!

So next year they start this awesome 5 year string of medals. You run the same race 5 yrs in a row and you can collect all five medals to make a star. How cool is that?? I'm bumming a little bit because now I feel like I need to do my family planning around this dumb race. Isn't the power of marketing amazing?

It really is a cool concept though!