13.1 Atlanta 2012 is in the Books

I did it, I got up yesterday morning at 5am and headed out to the Atlanta Allstate Insurance 13.1 mile Half Marathon and I finished well.

I have to be honest and tell you that I wasn’t feeling like it would be a great run. I had been in Atlanta for 3 days at a Great Catalyst Conference and to be honest I was tired. Matter of fact I broke all the rules and went to Krispy Kreme and had 2 jelly filled donuts the night before the race. I now have a new motto by the way, “Krispy Kreme in moderation is good.”

It was a perfect cool morning to start at 7am. I got to the race and looked to see what race corral I was in and I had the letter A. The letter A means that I am in the starting group, up front, leading the pack… The honest thought that went through my head is how in the world did this happen? How did I get in corral A? And then it happened, the pacers came into the corral with signs that read “follow me for 1:25 and follow me for 1:30.” I was about to laugh out loud but I decided to just let it roll. I inched back as far as I could in the A corral so as not to get trampled. It was kinda of nice, I got to stand beside the one who won the race because I was in his corral at the start of the race. His name is Reuben Mwei, at mile 7, I met Reuben at his mile 12, if that tells you how good the runners in corral A are. Reuben finished the 13.1 miles in 1:09, amazing.

I was not discouraged, for the first 6 miles or more I averaged 8 minutes per mile and that was huge for me at 47 years old and being my first half marathon in a long time, I was excited. I finished the race in 1:47 and enough seconds to almost make it 1:48 but this was awesome for me. I had prayed to finish well under two hours and secretly hoped for 1:45 but knew that wasn’t possible. It was more possible than I had thought.

I finished strong, running hard at the end, as a runner should. I am really pleased. I finished 395 out of 2807 and I am amazed at that. At mile 7 as I was meeting Reuben at his mile 12, when I got to mile 12 I was meeting a lot of people who were at their mile 7. The great thing about running is that you are always running only against yourself.

I am looking forward to 26.2 in November and hope that I am as happy about my time there as I am with the 13.1. I am praying and training to complete 26.2 and could use your prayers for that as well. Some mistakenly believe if I had 13 minutes to spare in the half marathon for 2 hours that I should finish in well under 4 hours for twice the distance. Problem is, after doing 13.1 and then you 13.1 to go, my legs don’t seem to want to go as fast for the second half. If I finish in under 4 hours it will be a first for me. Praying and training hard.

Ronnie