I'm kinda tough!



"Today I will do what you wont, so tomorrow I can do what you cant."
I think that quote is from crossfit... I read it on someones fb page once and it stuck with me.
So, when I had to wake up at 4:45am on Monday morning to run my first ever half marathon distance... I kept telling myself that the people still in bed sleeping blissfully wouldn't be able to keep up with me on the next run... and it helped :)
The run started out great. It's always hard for me to do the first 3 miles... I don't know why but they're always the toughest mentally and physically.
I didn't really have any clue where I was running. Just went. I found a few new roads and neighborhoods and that was fun. I also downloaded an entire new album on itunes- which was amazing! Thank you, Mat Kearney for getting me through this run :)
Got to about 6 miles and realized I had to pee... big time. Luckily there's a park in the area so I ran over there praying the entire way that the bathrooms weren't locked- OPEN :)
After that it was me and the pavement :)
Looking back it was just a really great run. I had a couple tough moments where I cramped up. Once I even had to stop on the side of the road to stretch out a butt cramp (yes, butt cramp.) At that point there were quite a few other runners beginning to trickle out. Always nice to see friendly faces!
All the sudden I looked down (thinking I was on maybe mile 8...) and I was over 10!!!
That was a pleasant surprise. Then about 10 seconds later I ran out of water. Suck.
Pushed it big time. Dug deep. And re-read Christies text from that morning, she said,
"A friend of mine told me that if you can do a 10K you can do a half, and if you can do a half you can do a whole. So, today's your proof!"
I started to get choked up, and didn't want to be hyperventilating on my last mile without water. So, I tried to lock it up :)
I had tried to plan the run so that my last mile was the loop right by our house. Where it all started. The loop where I ran my first mile without stopping. This was where I wanted to finish my first "half marathon" :) This didn't help with fighting back emotions!
Pat had texted me to see how close I was and I texted back. I was about 8 minutes ahead of my estimated finish time and he texted back, "I'm impressed, but not surprised!" so I texted him, "I'm a bad a$$!"
As I rounded the corner right by our house and looked down my street at my last .2 mile I saw my family come pouring out of the house. They stood on the sidelines of the most creative finish line EVER, and cheered me on as I completed one of the biggest feats of my life.



FINISH!!!



Notice the paper in my hand- Addyson made me a card with a rainbow, and '13's written all over it :)



Helping mommy stretch...

 You know what's funny is that this really was the easiest part of my day! I know that if I can raise 3 kids, and if I can go to births for 30 hours straight- I can do this. This really was my proof :)



Check.