Half Marathon Highlights

September 30 was a B-I-G day for me. After months spent training - running around my neighbourhood, up and down hills, and all the way to boot camp, I worked myself up to running my very first half marathon! 21.1 KM! 13.1 MILES!! In other words a really, really long way!!

My race day gear, all lined up and ready to go!!

I didn't have high expectations for the race. I really just wanted to finish the race and hopefully run most of the race. Guess what?! I DID! Although my running speed is about as fast as most speed walkers (by the end, it was as fast as 80 year old women walking!), I managed to traverse 21.1km around the Surrey Half Marathon route.

I managed to rope the hubs into running the race too. His time was obviously faster than mine - by an HOUR! But either way, we both crossed the finish line!!

Before the race, I ran into my good friend Kim, who was running a relay of the full marathon with three other amazing women! It was great to see a smiling face to cheer me on... I had psyched myself out a LOT before the race.

Along the way were people cheering us on, including this little girl holding a sign of encouragement for all of the random strangers running past her. Each mile marker station was manned by a different country or cultural group. It was so fantastic to have Korean dancers, German musicians, Palestinian dancers, and drummers from the India station. Even more inspiring was the Philippine's station - they brought group of patients in wheel chairs to cheer on the runners. It was definitely an emotional day!

Next along the route were my favourite cheerleaders of all! My in-laws brought the girls to cheer me on, right near the end of the race when I needed some extra encouragement to pull through the last 5km.
As I was coming up to the finish line - FINALLY!! - There were some friendly faces to greet me! Thanks Kelly and Zarina! My husband finished a full hour before me, and spent that hour cheering the next runners on until I finally crossed the finish line!

Here we are post-race! I can't believe we actually ran a 21.1KM race! There were lots of post-race recovery stations, but we couldn't even stop to enjoy them - we had to shower, kiss our babies and catch a flight to Hawaii!! More on that later this week!