My AHHHMAZING mini marathon=)

It’s been a week now since I’ve run the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon. (fun fact: the is the nation’s largest half-marathon, having sold out with 35,000 participants for the past 12 years. Cool huh?!?!?) I will put more pictures up later, that were taken of me by the event photographers, once they are available.

Thinking back I am filled with so much thankfulness to God for the strength he gave to me accomplish this goal.

The Goal: The first of the year I made a list of goals I wanted to accomplish in 2014. (I know a lot of people don’t do the goal thing and they will write essays on why it’s dumb to do this, but hey!  it works for me and it’s something that I really enjoy doing) Somehow running this mini marathon made it onto the list. *crazy*  My only reason was because my oldest brother ran it when he was 17 (I’ve always looked up to Jonathan) and my dad has ran it about 4 times, when he was younger. And they were the only two to run it in my family. Plus I have five sisters and I wanted to be the first girl to finish the mini marathon in my family.

The Training: I trained for 10 weeks beginning February 18…I ran about 130 miles preparing for it.  I literally wore out my running shoes=) On Tuesday and Thursday evenings I would do my conditioning runs and I saved my long distant running for Saturday morning (early before I could think clearly and talk myself out of it=) And all the days in between (Mon. Wed. and Fri.) I did at least 30 minutes cardio. My only rest day were Sundays and oh how I enjoyed them=) So yeah 10 weeks of hard physical workouts and training all for the big day=)

The Obstacles: I had to deal with the weather while training, and we’ve had one of the hardest winters ever - it hung on forever. Spring just wouldn’t come! I ran in 15 degree weather, snow, heavy wind, rain and everything else you could imagine. But not without complaining…I’m a fair weather runner…ONLY! I know the bad runs were the most memorable, but I did have a lot of fantastic run and they left me feeling like I could run forever=) The week before the marathon I had the flu. I couldn’t run the Thurs. and Sat. before…I was just too sick. I was like all these weeks and now I might not be able to run at all. And you know that cough you get when you after you have the flu…talk about not being able to breath after I ran. I was really nervous coming up on Saturday, about that cough. And on top of it my stomach was really sore from it all, which didn’t help in the least. I ran the week of twice and really felt depressed about it, I was so strong up to this point and now even three miles were hard to do. All I could do was pray that God would give me strength that day to run.

My Diet: All ten of these training weeks I’ve been on a super clean diet..cheating only a handful of times. I’ve never felt better, physically, in my life. I feel so strong. I didn’t do any energy drinks either  – water only (and herbal tea when I had the flu). I wanted to run this marathon completely naturally. Disclaimer:  I did drink one natural energy drink mix, before one of my conditioning runs. I drank it for some Amish friends, they are selling this stuff in their store and wanted to see if it worked – it did.

My Support: So all of that (horrible experiences…lol) lead to me finally running the MINI MARATHON!!!!! I went to bed early the night before…and no I didn’t eat pasta for dinner…I thought I’d wake up the morning of so excited, but actually I didn’t even want to get out of bed…and slept till the last possible moment. My amazing sister Christina, took off work, to come and see me run. She also drove to Indy and back letting me just ride and relax both ways. Did I mention I love her?!?! Seriously she’s the best sister ever! She has been so supportive throughout my entire training and even went the extra mile (no pun intended) to cheer me on. Not that my other family members weren’t supportive…they were all very supportive. Gotta’ love them=)

The Marathon: It was really chilly that morning, and the last thing a runner want to wear is more clothes – but I did it and finished without having to take off my top t-shirt. Running across that start line…I was full of mixed emotions…now I’m not a crier AT ALL! But at that moment with all that music and cheering all I wanted to do was sit down and cry. I was finally here! Everything I had trained for, all those good and bad runs. All for this, this moment. Now I’m not sure why I felt like this at the beginning of the race and not the end…apparently running drains me emotionally. The first mile when by in a flash (you were right dad!) Running on the Indy 500 race track was SO AMAZING! Everyone running began yelling as we ran down onto the track=)  From mile 1-10 I was rocking. But mile 11 on everything got difficult. I was mentally exhausted. All I could think about was I got to make it…but that last mile all I could do was smile, this was my LAST mile.

The Finish: I never stopped once…I ran all 13.1 miles without a single break. I ran it in two hours and two minutes. (a little bit slower due to having the flu) I did it! I crossed the finish line and all I could think about was “I’m done! I actually ran the mini marathon!”