My Half Marathon Results

Well I finished the half marathon! I love to run and the Flying Pig Marathon is a great race to run! They have thousands of participants between several events over two days. They have a lot of entertainment throughout the race and there are a lot of very colorful participants. I saw several people dressed as pigs, two guys dressed as superheroes and my husband said he saw a nude person running (I am not quite sure where he would display his running bib!) Overall it was a lot of fun and I am exhausted! I finished with a time of 1:52:52, which was great for me considering the two plus mile hill up Mt. Adams (if you haven't been to Cincinnati it is loaded with hills and almost impossible to run a great distance without encountering hills!) I finished 1162 out of 10871 overall (both mens and womens half marathon runners), 293 out of 6860 (for the womens division) and 51 out of 1102 for my age bracket. I feel great about how well I finished and would definately recommend this race to anyone who loved to run!

Tips for Running a Race

Picture from Boston.com

I love to run. I have been running for over ten years and in that time I have missed about a total of six weeks worth of days of running. I ran up until the day before I gave birth to all three of my children (I would have run the day I gave birth, but I was in the hospital). Last October I ran my first half marathon. Once I ran it I was hooked. I cannot wait to run my next half marathon in May. If you are interested in running a race here are some of my tips to training.

Wear appropriate clothing- I hate to be uncomfortable when I run. When I train for either of the half marathons in my area I am either training in in the winter or summer. In the winter I wear mulitple layers on top. For the bottom layer I like to wear a shirt that draws the mositure away from the body, since even in the winter I sweat when I run. I also recommend to wear something on your ears if it is windy. In the summer I also recommend clothing that draws mositure away from the body.

Run where you feel safe- I like to run in a very public open area. It makes me feel safer. I would recommend running with a partner if possible.

Start out small and build-up- when you are training to run a distance that is longer than you normally run start-out running a much shorter distance and build-up every week. Since I train for half marathons I add one mile onto my distance every week. I never run the entire 13.1 miles, since you should be able to run 13.1 miles if you can run 10-11 miles. There is an episode of How I Met Your Mother when one of the characters tells his friends that you don't train for a marathon you just run it. Well he woke-up the morning of the NY Marathon and just ran it. (Not a good idea!) He finished but afterward could not move his body to walk off the subway! My husband ran the half marathon with me in October. He had trained and ran a half marathon in May and was fine after the race. However, he did not train for the half marathon in October. He ran three times prior to the race. He finished more than a half hour after me and when he was finished felt very sick. He realized that not training for a race was not a good idea!

Find something to entertain you- I love to listen to music when I run. I prefer upbeat music because it keeps me going and helps me run up the hills.

Research the race you are running- I would recommend doing a little research on the race you are running. Find out if there are hills that way you can train on hills and they will not give you a problem when you run it. Find out if people tend to pass on the outside or inside. If you don't like to pass people and they pass on the outside stay towards the inside of the group.

Don't do anything new on the day of the race- Make sure you try out anything new prior to the race. I know I have to break in my shoes at least a couple of weeks prior to a race or else I will get a blister in the middle of my run and blisters on your feet while running are super painful.

If you ever wanted to run a race I highly recommend it. I love running and races are so much fun. They are also very addicting!

I Did it! I finished the Cincinnati Half Marathon!

I have wanted to run a marathon for several years now, but everytime I thought seriously about doing it I either had an injury or I was pregnant (or just had a baby!). So in May when my husband went to the Flying Pig Marathon expo I saw that they were holding a half marathon in Cincinnati without hills. My husband ran the half marathon of the Flying Pig and about halfway through there is a giant hill. Well I registered both of us for the race and I began training Memorial Day weekend (I have been running almost everyday for the past 10 years and have only missed maybe three-four weeks in those 10 years when I had my three kids and when I started to develop a stress fracture in my foot). Well this morning I finally met my goal and finished the half marathon in 1 hour and 48 minutes. I came in 262 overall and 13 in my age group and my husband ran it in 2 hours and 20 minutes (he only ran five times since May when he finished the Pig, which he said was a really bad idea- he realized he really needed to train for it!) I was very proud of myself since I think that time for an old 32 year old lady who has three kids, one of which I had 8 months ago via c-section. So now I think I may attempt the 1/2 Pig in May (we will see- that hill up Mt. Adams is still not calling my name). But now I can say "I did it!"