Half Marathon ~ Am I to stubborn for my own good?

So way back in January my friend Jolene convinced me we could run a half marathon.  I took the bait, it went well with my new year's resolution and signed up.  So that was about as much preparation  as I put into this event.  I mean I trained for the Gold Nugget Tri and I ran with my buddy Autumn but I kind of forgot about the 1/2 marathon.  

Then Jolene got a better offer to go to SF and dropped the 1/2 marathon...yeah I was a little bitter :)  How could she get out of it.... she had a great excuse but still.  SO what was I to do???  Well then Autumn stepped and said she would run it with me.  So we set up a training schedule and totally ignored it!  Then we went on vacation, my mom left so no one to watch the kids while I trained..... you get the idea, I had a lot of excuses.

So we come home from vacation on Wed and Thurs Autumn calls and asks if we are still on for the 1/2 marathon.  NO  I didn't want to do it,  Jarrett wasn't home so no one to watch the kids.  Aren't kids the greatest excuse to get you out of whatever you feel like bailing on???? But I digress, so I tell Autumn if I can find a sitter I will do it.  So I call Stacey, thinking she would be busy and not able to watch the kids and guess what..... yeah, she could watch them....... so I call Autumn back and tell her we are on.  Okay we are on???  she asks.  Yeah aren't we???? I ask.  We are both trying to call the others bluff so we won't have to go through with this torture session but neither of us will give in.  WOW we are stubborn.  Mind you I have never really ran over 5 miles, once I ran 7 only because we got lost.  So I am really hoping she will bail. 

I pickup our bibs on Friday then Saturday rolls around, Stacey shows up ( I was hoping she wouldn't) so the bluff still stands and I go over to Autumn's.  She is ready, we jump in her truck and head to the race.  It was kind of raining..... no not enough of an excuse to bail.  We discuss strategies to run/walk as necessary as to not cause any permanent damage.

So the race starts the adrenaline begins to flow, we are weaving through the crowd and the next thing I know it has been 8 miles and we are high-fiving because I have never run this far.  I feel good the weather has cleared and I roll the idea around that I could actually run this whole thing.  Autumn is great support and a great running partner.  So we make it to 11 miles where it hurts and it would be so easy to stop, but we don't let each other.  Long of the short we make it, I tear up at the end proud to have completed  challenge.  There would be pictures but we didn't tell anyone we were running do to fear of failure!  

All I can say if thanks so much to my girls who helped me accomplish a goal!!  It felt great, I look forward to the next one... If I remember.

Love and sore muscles,