Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Go Mommy Go! My half marathon

A few Saturdays ago I ran my token half marathon in a small nearby town called Gold Hill. I say "token" because I have a personal goal of running a half marathon after each child, to help me stay in shape. To be totally honest, I don't run much these days. I teach at least 6 hours of aerobics a week, so, to keep my body from falling apart by 30, I only did long runs on Saturdays to help keep up my running shape (normally I would run shorter runs throughout the week as well). Matt and I did a 10 mile race at the beginning of April together and I was tempted to call my token run good with that (a half marathon is 13.2 miles - just 3.2 miles further). But, we had a great fast run (I always do when I go with Matt - he is great at pushing my speed) and the post run high drove me to do the half marathon.

So, a friend (Christine) and I looked at races around town and ditched the fancy big race in Ashland due to too many hills and opted for a nice small town race in Gold Hill. Christine and I both signed up and showed up the morning of (and when I say small town, I mean like pop. 1,000!).

Long story short - I had a decent race (well, okay, the fastest race I have had so far - 1:44, averaging 7:56 min miles) and I even won my age division and came in as the 4th woman overall! Wahoo! Oh,....did I forget to mention that there were only THIRTY people in the whole race?! Must have slipped my mind...We were dying laughing as Christine and I realized how small scale this race was!! For most of my hour and 44 minutes, I ran A-L-O-N-E. Didn't see anyone. It was a race I will never forget.

The best part was as I rounded the corner for the final stretch and see my boys and hear them cheering "Go, mommy go! Go, mommy go!" Those faces get me through tough times in life, and this was no exception. Though my joy in seeing them resulted in the cheesy pose in the picture below, it was so rewarding.
Me with my cheerleaders, who, by the way, are easily impressed by the bling (a.k.a. my ribbon) - even if it was only because there was no one in the race!
Me with Christine and one of her running buddies - all with ribbons. Like I said, 30 people = awards for us all!

Now I get the chance to be Matt's cheering squad as he does his half marathon this weekend (but it is a very large race, so we aren't expecting ribbons, but we are sure we will be proud of our healthy daddy no matter what!)!

4 comments:

Mandi said...

Wow! Way to go Autumn! I'm so impressed! Now I need to go out and to something amazing too I guess ;)

Kristi said...

7:56 minute miles is awesome. You act like it aint no thing (said like a girl from the hood.) Your level of fitness is far beyond my standards. You're awesome.

Brandan and Becky said...

Hooray for you! And no worries about breaking down at age 30-- Neil Olsen! Brenda Jensen! Renae Dixon! The best is yet to come.

Callie said...

You go girl- I'm always so impressed with your ability to push yourself so hard at everything you do! You're a superstar!