Frederick Half Marathon

Back in February I signed up for the Frederick Half Marathon. I really wanted to set a goal for myself after having a baby and I also LOVE the Frederick hometown race. A bunch of friends from school were running it too so I decided to bite the bullet and do it. It had been 2 years since I had run a half. Training was extremely difficult. Needless to say I didn't realize that we were going to still have sub zero temps through the end of March. Good grief, winter lasted forever. By the time I started "training" and I will use that term lightly, I had given myself about 7 weeks to go from rock bottom to 13.1 miles. Then....we moved and I got strep twice. So....training didn't really happen. I cranked out a few long runs on the weekends while Cooper was napping, but that was about it. My during the week runs didn't happen between meeting with realtors, buyers, putting the house on the market, packing, a sick baby, a sick me, and a full-time job. I was actually really concerned about the race because I did one 11 mile run the week before the race and thought I hurt my IT band because of lack of training.

I really took it easy the week before the race (as easy as you can when you are moving boxes and schlepping stuff). I rested, didn't run and stretched a lot. I knew it was just going to be slow to the finish.

When I was running I felt pretty good but my IT band started to tighten up around mile 7 and I started to get worried. It was the strangest thing, though, at mile 8 it was like everything relaxed and I was able to dig in. I was so surprised and excited that I beat my personal best time by 3 minutes and finessed at 2 hours and 5 minutes. I was really proud that post baby, I was not only able to finish but finish with a personal best.

 Laura and I at 6:00am ready to roll!

Me with Mike Chris and Laura

 Go time!

 Coming down the home stretch!

What a cutie waiting for me at the finish! He was so tired though....it was just about nap time.

All finished!