Bearathon 2014 Recap

I can't really express how excited I am! And I get it now. I get why people race. I understand the desire, the compulsion even, to run and race.

Crossing that finish line felt so, so good. And seeing our kids and my dad cheering me on from the side was awesome. I wanted to jump for joy and cry at the same time.

Picture overload warning.

First things first. Carb loading was Friday night. If you haven't had a pizookie from BJ's, you should find a BJ's and go have one right now. Mine was a mini. I think I was conservative and should have gotten the regular size. It was that good.

Then there was the almost sleepless night. Wonder Woman slept with me, on top of me, sideways with her feet in my back, and halfway off the bed. She moves a lot in the night, I tell you. I had three nightmares. One was that I missed the race altogether and woke up at 11 a.m. Couldn't go back to sleep after that one.

Finally got out of bed at 4:30, dressed and ate oatmeal. Left the hotel at 6 and headed to the race. I was nervous. I had spent much of the awake moments of the night praying already, so I continued that as I drove to the race.

At this particular race last year, a student who ran crossed the finish line and died. A lot of the students ran in memory of him. What a sad and tragic experience.

This was the nifty swag bag.

This was my bib. I felt goofy taking the first selfie photo above, but I wanted to get one of my number. So this photo became necessary. 

It was a beautiful race. Although there was no sunshine, that actually made it a better race for me. Sun makes you hot. Running makes you hotter. No sun is a good thing.

There weren't many cheering sections along the way except for aide stations. I did see my family once at mile 10 or so. Then I saw their sweet faces again at the finish. My dad snapped these photos. I'm in the tie-dye shirt.

The girl next to me is someone I met on mile 1. We kept pace the entire time, and truly, it made the race so much more enjoyable. I was nervous to run alone. My new running friend made it fun. 

This is a close-up photo of my headband. Those tiny, white flakes are not dandruff. Nope. They are little beads of salt. The sweat on my headband evaporated into actual salt flakes. Very cool science experiment right there.

First order of business...the medal. Woohoo! Second order of business was water. Best water I've ever tasted. And if you know Waco, that's saying something right there. 

The two precious kiddos who got to come to the race. Superman was at the hotel with Mimi.

Here's my dad. He's so handsome. Not one wanted to touch me. I was dripping. The kids were disgusted. And if your dad won't hug you, you know it's bad. 

By the way, about this point I realized that I had zero chafing. Zero. That's huge for me. I love Run Guard. Love, love, love Run Guard. I will never run again without it. I'm hooked!

 The kids and I walked around for about 10 minutes. Wonder Woman wants to be a Baylor Bear now! Sic 'em!

Wonder Woman also insisted on being photographer and making me be silly. She is precious. Lego Man is awesome. We had the best time being goofy. 

 Back at the hotel, even Mom didn't want to get too close. And that's okay. It was pretty bad. Stink, stink and sweat all mixed together makes for B-A-D.

If you live in Texas, you should go run this race next year. It was awesome! Well-organized and very well run. Gatorade and water at every station. There were shot bloks at miles 4, 7 and 10 I think. I lost track. Somewhere in the hills of Cameron Park all the miles ran together. Apparently the course is different than it normally is and it's missing the BIG hill in the park due to construction. Can I just say that even without that hill, it was incredibly challenging. I didn't walk every hill, but I did walk most of the them. I didn't walk a lot, but I did walk a little. Overall, for my first half marathon, I'm super proud to finish in 2:38. Obviously, I have some work to do. I would love to whittle my time down to around 2:10 or 2:15, but that's a lot of work ahead of me. 

For now, I'm just thankful that I finished, that I ran nearly every step of it, and that I didn't die.

Fear is a terrible tool of the enemy. I will be posting about this soon, because throughout the last two weeks leading up to the race, I realized what a grip the enemy has on me when it comes to fear. 

Only by God's grace was I able to finish at all. Only His grace...