Women's Half Marathon

In July, my personal trainer (and very close friend) informed me that as part of my continued training that I was going to be running in the Women's Half Marathon in September and that I had no choice.  Well, what can I say to that?  My other sweet friend, Doreen, joined in and the 3 of us were even able to train together.  Rachel ran with us, walked with us, pushed us along and I hate to even admit this, but that woman carried my water bottle for me - not only during 2 1/2 months of training but over the 13.1 mile half marathon!  What a friend!!

This was a huge personal accomplishment!  Personally, I hate running - I always have.  I used to use my "over-exertional asthma card" in PE as soon as they said we were running!  I was hoping that through this experience, I would learn to love running and it be an enjoyable way to exercise anywhere at anytime.  Well, let me just say that didn't happen and I still hate running, however, I have a really cool medal to show my accomplishment, and memories of this accomplishment that can never be taken away from me and especially the bond with these sweet friends of mine that only grew stronger as we ran (and I whined) together!!!

Pinning my bib on....

Lined up in the corral - Doreen found us matching shirts and bought them for us!

Cassie got us as we're running near the end

See that smile?  I am literally in sight of the finish line!

We did it - and we got the medals to prove it!

Love this shot - here, Rachel is checking out her app that gave us a mile by mile breakdown on our times and we could not believe how fast we went on an average - we were very proud of ourselves!

So there I am - my time was 2:49:28.  Considering we were hoping to be around 3 hours, I am pleased with my time.

My awesome sister, Cassie & my Mom came to see me.  They were able to see us somewhere around the 10th mile and then make it to the finish line.  It meant the world to me to have additional cheerleaders!!

Here are the Payne Girls (Missing Rachel of course) and adding a couple of Warrens in!

My wonderful support system!

That night, Rachel hosted our families to her house to a most marvelous meal.  I am so blessed to have these 2 friends in my life.

At church on Sunday, we wore our race shirts!  I wanted to wear the medal but they said it might be a bit too much.  I don't know why!!!

I took this picture for my mother in law, but wanted to share here, too.  I have a Pandora bracelet and at the Expo, they were selling charms and I HAD to get this.  I am so proud of it - you can see it fits right between my children and my soccer ball charm!!!