Thursday, May 31, 2012

We did it...half marathon completed!!

Happy to say that Tracy and I both completed the half marathon on Sunday! Together we crossed the finish line in 4:03:36!! The day started out at 4:15am to get ready for a 7:00am start time! Of course it's hard to sleep the night before so how is it possible for one to be completely rested?? 4:15 seemed to come sooner than it should have..lol!! We did it though, up, fed and ready to go, ride on the c-train to the Stampede grounds, bags checked and at the start line with 20 minutes to spare!There were people everywhere!!! The line ups to the porta potties was insane and people pushing their way to get to the front to start the race. As a walker it's kind of scary at the start line, cause you gotta stay way over to the side or you risk getting mowed over..lol! And even over to the side people still running past you on both sides, kind of makes you feel like you're standing still..lol! The first 10km went pretty fast and we were on track to finish in 3 or 3.5 hours. We were never at the back, there was always someone behind us so it was good motivation to keep up our pace. Things started to go down hill around the 12km mark when I had to pee. The problem with stopping to pee when I'm doing a race ?? ... is my arthritis... stopping for anything , tends to stiffen me up right away and it's very difficult to get things going at the same pace they were before! Note to self, maybe not drink so much pre-race so I can make through an entire half without stopping. :-)

The last 6 or 7km were alittle slower for us, getting my pace back up after stopping for a pee never really happened and we were both having pain in one spot or another..lol!! Through the entire route, anytime I had to go down a hill of any kind, I had to do a slow jog. The pressure on my knee going downhill was very painful but if I jogged it was in a slightly bent position and didn't hurt as much. The last hill at the 18km mark was a tough one, I didn't really have the energy to jog but I knew that my knee would never hold up having to extend it fully in the walking position. Somewhere I managed to get myself into a slow jog and the strangest thing happened ... I couldn't stop. The pain was less in my knee because it was slightly bent jogging and so I just kept jogging so it didn't hurt so much. Who knew I could find it in me to actually jog the last 3km and across the finish line! :-) Tracy was great, she was having pain but she just jogged along beside me, well and she's got longer legs then I do so her walking could actually keep up to my VERY slow jog...LOL!!! The last 5km was pretty quiet as we pushed through being tired and in pain. But we did it, we finished and Tracy can now say she has completed her first half marathon!

Thank you to everyone that donated towards my fundraising this past weekend in support of the half marathon, your donations are greatly appreciated! My next fundraising walk is June 10th. Stay tuned for those details.  Visit our website www.arthkickers.com and subscribe there to follow our journey and get all the up to date details on events and fundraising!







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