I did it! 13.1 Miles

I woke up on Saturday feeling excited and a little nervous. I was more worried about the cold as it was around 28-30 degrees when I woke up. The week prior had been a gorgeous 60 degrees. So I had not trained in colder weather and I was nervous about what I should wear.

I ended up wearing:

• C9 by Champion® Women's Compression Tights from Target
• C9 by Champion® Women's Premium Skort from Target
• My Kudzu Green Sport Tek T-Shirt from work
• Oiselle Running Women's Solid Arm Warmers from Amazon
• My green light weight jacket with the thumb holes
• My Brooks Ghost 6 from my local Running Store Off n' Running
• Armpocket
• Ultimate Direction Access Waist Pack

I thought I'd end up shedding the jacket but it was just too cold and I ended up being very comfortable with it on.

The week before the race I started becoming very nervous about the hills. I had trained on some hills but I was not sure I had done enough. Luckily they ended up not being so bad. I tried to not focus on them and instead would pick runners near me that I wanted to pass. It became a fun game and with every runner I passed the more confident I became and the faster the miles went by.

Greensboro Half Marathon Elevation Map

Race Map

My goal going into the race was to finish in 2 hours 15 minutes. Which would be a pace of  about 10 minutes 18 seconds per mile. Which was very reasonable from my training and gave some extra time for the hills.

I ended up finishing in 2 hours 6 minutes and 43 seconds! I was super proud of that finish. I did have a secret dream of doing it in 2 hours but hey this was my first and you always have to have goals. Plus the hills definitley were a factor. Although I will say I did a pretty good job of keeping a consistent pace even with the hills.

According MapMyRun my race splits were:

Distance	Pace
1 Mile	09:37 min/mi
2 Mile	09:38 min/mi
3 Mile	09:42 min/mi
4 Mile	09:50 min/mi
5 Mile	09:24 min/mi
6 Mile	09:12 min/mi
7 Mile	09:31 min/mi
8 Mile	09:16 min/mi
9 Mile	09:29 min/mi
10 Mile	09:43 min/mi
11 Mile	09:44 min/mi
12 Mile	09:47 min/mi
13 Mile	09:37 min/mi
13.3 Mile	08:20 min/mi

One of my favorite parts of the race was having my family there to cheer me on. My In-laws were visiting and came a day early so they could make the race. That meant a lot to me. My husband and daughter were of course there. I saw them at the start, around mile 6 and at the finish. Most of the pictures were taken by my husband.

I was also surprised at the finish line by my boss and his daughter. I veered over and gave him a high five right before crossing the finish line. It felt awesome to have all the support.

A highlight for me was around mile 7. I was running along when all of a sudden I was passed by the winner of the marathon who was followed by a cop car. For him it was around mile 20. It was so cool seeing him fly by doing twice the distance I was doing. The marathoners started 45 minutes before the half marathoners. He won the race doing the 26.2 miles in 2 hours 30 minutes 30 seconds! It was amazing to watch the elite runners. Eight Marathoners finished in under 3 hours.

The winner of the half marathon finished it in 1 hour 12 minutes.

I have to say it was a pretty perfect experience. All my training paid off as I had no problems completing the distance. I felt great the whole time. I was able to beat my original goal. I had a great cheering team. The weather was cold but ended up being a nice temperature for racing once I got going. The event had a lot of wonderful volunteers. I'm so glad I committed to doing this.

Here were my finial results:
Finish percentile is top 41%
Age group percentile is top 37%

What's next? I'm thinking the Inaugural Rock 'n' Roll Raleigh Half Marathon with a goal of 2 hours :)