All State Atlanta Half Marathon Race Report

I have officially started tapering as of last Tuesday for the Seven Bridges Marathon.  That was my attempt at my longest run ever, 20 miles, that didn't quite go as planned.  Oh well.  I guess there are good runs and bad ones.  I wasn't really feeling confident, UNTIL TODAY!

Last week, I got an email from a fellow Atlanta blogger, Karen, at Working It Out (Go check out her blog!  I'll wait...) that I had won a free entry into the All State Atlanta Half Marathon.  She was running it too and had been given a free entry to give away on her blog.  I actually wasn't the officiall winner, but evidently, the real winner could not use it, so she picked me.  Yay!  Thank you so much, Karen!!!

This morning, I got up at 5am to drive the short 35-40 minute drive to the start line.  Soon after I got there, Tom and Colleen, a.k.a. Irondiva, arrived as well.  By the way, Jenn and I have had so much fun getting to know this fine couple.  They are some of the most fun people around, and we love hanging out with them!  They had already been signed up for this race, so it was perfect that I got to run it too.  Since I'm starting my taper, I didn't want to cook my legs and try for a PR, and Colleen was nice enough to run with me.  Tom was going to go quite a bit faster, so after meeting up just a few minutes before the race started, we heard the national anthem and were off!  Colleen and I had so much fun!  We talked about everything as we slowly clicked off the miles.  She says she's not very good at pacing, but she was spot on for our goal of 2:05.  The first 5-6 miles were not all the great for me, but after a little while, I started feeling pretty good.  The course was pretty hilly, but it wasn't anything different than what we train on all the time.  Before we knew it, we were at mile 9 with only 4 miles to go!  Tom finished the race and then came back to meet us at mile 12.  We finished exactly at 2:05!  After we were done, we scored our sweet race medals that spin, grabbed some chocolate milk, and headed home.

Bling Bling!

I'm still riding the high from a really fantastic run!  I kept telling Tom and Colleen how great I felt and that I could definitely go longer.  Twice as long?  I guess we'll have to see.  But, my confidence is through the roof!!!  One thing that really helped me was how we ran today.  Usually, I try to bank a bunch of time at the beginning and then watch the time slowly slip away as I slow down.  Today, we stayed very consistent throughout and nailed our goal.  I think this is how I will attempt my marathon in 2 weeks!  I hope all this training will get me through all those ridiculous miles.  :)  Thanks for reading!