Orlando - Half Marathon!

The last half marathon that I ran was horrible.  I hated every minute of it.  So when my great friend Emily asked me to do another I was definitely hesitant.  I decided to prove to myself that I could do it and go and have fun with her!  We had so much fun!

We were childhood neighbors from when we were 4 years old on.  She moved to Fort Myers, Florida the same week that I moved to Houston.  We've been very close for many years! 

I flew into Fort Myers and got to see their beautiful house and adorable puppies. On Saturday morning we drove to Orlando and got to Disney World!  Fun!  How cute are the numbers? "Princess Emily" and "Princess Camille".. Quinton's didn't call him a princes... darn.

We went to bed before 8pm that night because we had to be up at 2:30am in order to get breakfast, get on the bus, and be in line at 4am.  That was our main complaint.. and it was cold!

We ran through the middle of the park, saw all kinds of good characters, and had a lot of fun!  Even though we didn't train together and didn't run together we all finished within 9 minutes of each other!

Emily was so sweet and got me this adorable thing to hang our medals.  I guess this means I need to run more races :)

And we did get some good "bling". 

After the race we had a great celebratory drink.

Oh yeah, and Dave and Buddy weren't able to make it.. but they were very supportive!!

All in all, a great time!

Things I've learned from this Half Marathon from my last.

1) Crossfit is awesome.  I did Crossfit during the week and long runs (sometimes) on the weekends and felt much better.  I also was not very sore afterward.  Crossfit took all of that soreness in the beginning :)
http://www.crossfitcaveman.com/ is the gym we go to.  I use Hal Higdon to decide how long my long runs should be.

2) GU is your best friend.  My body burns a lot of calories (as does running 13 miles...) so I need calories.  I took a "GU" at mile 4 and mile 8.  It was great.
http://www.guenergy.com/ the vanilla and mint chocolate ones are my favorite.

3) I did "intervals" for this run.  I ran for 5 minutes and walked for 1 minute, the entire race.  RunKeeper app on your iPhone will beep in your ear for the intervals.  It's great.  5 minutes of running is much less daunting than taking off running for 2 hours.

4) Book on tape.  I get bored running, I was in Disney World with 20,000 people and Disney characters and bands and beeping in my ear... and I still needed something more.  On Itunes you can buy Audio Books.  I only listen to the book when I'm on a run.  It makes me want to go out and run to find out what happens next.

5) If you're tired at the end, call somebody.  I called my husband.  He talked to me for the last 2 miles and it was the best.  It was very cool to have him in my ear as I crossed the finish line.

6) And last of all.. run with fun people.  There's nothing like having run a half marathon with a great friend!  We'll do more and more of them.  I can't wait!

One last thing... I shaved 23 minutes off my half marathon from my last one.  Last time I finished last in my age group.  This time we finished in the top third.  I may not be fast, but I'm getting faster.  And that's all that matters!