Nike Women's {Half} Marathon

This morning, Ashley and I woke up at 5:30 am to eat breakfast. While we were eating breakfast, we watched an episode of Friends, The One With Phoebe's Run. Then we got ready and headed down to Union Square to meet up with 20,000 other women who also woke up during the wee hours of the morning. And lucky for Blake, these fabulous girls picked us up so he didn't have to deal with getting up himself, not to mention waking up two little boys.
Union Square was packed. Packed! Ashley and I tried our best to push and squeeze our way to our pace group, but it wasn't going to happen. So we found a place where we would stop getting pushed and when it was our turn to run, we started running. We ran 6.5 miles along the most beautiful course imagineable. Can you beat Downtown San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, and views of the bay, Alcatraz, and Golden Gate Bridge? I really felt like those miles flew by. Then came the BIG hill, which of course was right where our biggest fans were waiting for us. But we still had smiles on our faces, so it must not have been that bad.
During the second half the race we were motivated to keep running with promises of Gatorade, oranges, cheerleaders, bananas, LUNA bars, music bands, water, and chocolate. I was only let down when I arrived at the chocolate mile and there was no chocolate. Really? Of course they would run out of chocolate. I called Blake at mile 12 to let him know how close we were only to find out they'd been in a car accident (everyone's okay, not Blake's fault) and weren't there yet. I slowed down so they would be in the stands to see me cross the finish line, but I didn't slow enough. I saw them walking towards me as I was being handed my beautiful Tiffany's necklace. Sad. But of course I still went back out over the finish line for a picture. (On a side note, the t-shirt and medallion were better than ever this year. I love them both and will probably be wearing them every day this next week so people don't wonder why I'm walking funny.)
I am so proud of myself for finally doing this. Especially since the last time I was capable of running a mile was probably in 5th grade for the Presidential Phyiscal Fitness Award. I felt like I was running with teary-eyes and a big smile on my face the entire time just thinking of the reasons people were running. And those tears and that smile were especially big thinking about my Grandpa, who died of leukemia just over a year ago. I really hope to make this a yearly tradition and maybe others will join me to do the same. You know who you are! And an extra big thank you to Ashley (or should I say "Blythe") for joining me. It really was so much more fun to have someone to point out all the crazy things along the trail to, even though she did invoke her "no talking" rule. I love you Ashley!