Louisiana Half Marathon 2012

This past Sunday the hubby and I ran our first race together! This inaugural race was held in Tim’s hometown of Baton Rouge, LA. The house that he grew up in was actually on the race course! He wanted me to take this trip down memory lane with him.

Baton Rouge is atleast a 6 hour drive from Montgomery. In my opinion, this is the only way to travel for that amount of time with a 3-year-old:

Don’t judge.

We made it to Tim’s aunt’s house mostly without incident, and spent the night Friday night.

Saturday we spent the day roaming around Baton Rouge, starting with picking up our race packets and visiting the expo.

The expo was way too small, which made it way too crowded which made it kinda suck. But they had free beer, so word up on that!

Bonus points for the personalized race bibs though.

After the expo we drove around the race course just to get a feel for it.

The race started at the capitol building, went through the Garden District, through the city park and around the University Lakes. It’s probably the most beautiful race course I’ve seen yet. I was concerned about the narrowness of the roads though, with almost 4000 people registered I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit on these roads.

Loved the beautiful, scenic and FLAT course though!

Saturday afternoon after driving the race course, Tim, Lincoln and I visited the U.S.S. Kid.

 

I have to admit I’m not history buff, but Tim really enjoyed the history lesson, Lincoln enjoyed the guns … and I enjoyed finding these little trinkets …

Look closer …

Sex hygiene cartoon anyone? … how about some …

Titanic pose?

I can have fun just about anywhere. 🙂

Ok, ok … on to the actual race related stuff…

Saturday night we went to the Carb Supper to listen to Jeff Galloway speak. It was boring, the food was gross and there was no alcohol to be had. Lets skip that.

Somewhere along the way I decided that Tim and I should get a hotel room Saturday night downtown to be close to the starting line, instead of staying at his Aunt’s house 20 minutes away. Best decision EVER. Our morning was basically stress free. We met our friend Jessica in the lobby at 6:20 and easily walked to the starting line.

Loved the “Baby’s First Marathon” shirt and I’m with Awesome.

Got started right at 7:00, the first couple of miles were very crowded. Tim, Jessica and I just took it easy and tried not to get frustrated or separated. After the two mile mark the field began to naturally thin though and it turned out to not be a problem.

My goal for the race was to run it side-by-side with Tim. His goal was to beat his PR of 2:28. Jessica wanted to prove her awesomeness by finishing the first half marathon since her daughter was born only 2 months ago!

We ran the first 5 or 6 miles together and had a blast! I took pictures of the mile markers and posted them to Facebook as we went.

5 done! …

I probably did most of the talking, as usual, but we talked and laughed the entire time. My friend Kelly from highschool, who lives in Baton Rouge was planning on meeting us along the course to run a few miles. We couldn’t seem to catch each other at the right time though. I’m sure the people around me had probably never seen someone take 4 phone calls during a Half Marathon before. Don’t hate.

Before I knew it …

Tim started getting really tired around the 10-11 mile mark. I tried to be motivating without being a bitch. Apparently there is a fine line.

I sang to him, tried to make jokes, tried to speed up a little hoping he’d follow … “pick ‘em up, put ‘em down!” … “it’s only 1 more stupid mile”, can’t you do it for one more stupid mile?!”… that man is unable to be motivated when he’s tired. Thankfully we had banked plenty enough time in the earlier miles that it didn’t really matter.

The finish line came into sight and I knew that he would make his PR, although it was close.

(source)

2:27:03!

And I finally got to see Kelly! Its been a long 10 years or so.

Crap expo, crowded start, beautiful course, awesome medal, lots of water stations/port-o-pottys. The after party looked like a blast also but we opted for breakfast in the hotel restaurant instead. Can’t wait for next year!

$35 early bird sign-up for the half and $50 for the full, already open. I might have to go ahead and make it official.

2011 Year in Review

Happy 2012!

Wow, what a year! 2011 was a rollercoaster of a year, but thankfully they were mostly ups.

I ended my year with a great 10.5 mile group run yesterday morning and then dinner and a movie at my friend Drew’s house with the hubby and Lincoln.

We watched Unbreakable.

Running movie, pizza, alcohol … I can’t think of a better way to ring in the new year. Except maybe actually running, while intoxicated, after eating pizza.

Oh wait. I did that too.

Running:

In 2011, I ran 1288 miles.

I ran 3 half marathons, the first being Mercedes in February.

The second was Centerpoint Challenge Half Marathon in March. This was actually my PR race, but my least favorite.

The third half of the year and the most fun was the Montgomery Half Marathon in October.

The absolute highlight of the year was completing my first full marathon at Rocket City in December.

I’ve never felt more accomplished as I did in that moment.

Heath & Eating:

I hit my Weight Watcher’s goal weight of 145 pounds in December of 2009. In 2011, I maintained that weight within 5 pounds.

Although I was a vegetarian for the majority of 2010, I fell off the wagon so to speak in October 2010 when we went on Disney World trip. I continued to eat meat after the trip was over. Finally this past October I got back on track and have held to a vegetarian diet since then. It is something that is important to me on many levels, but it’s never the easiest option.

Nothing great ever came out of taking the easy route.

Life in General:

Life in general has been good in 2011. I changed my full-time status at work to PRN (as needed) so that I can spend more time with my family. I’m currently working about 1-2 days a week.

Our family went on several vacations during the year including to Biloxi, MS and to see Tim’s family in Baton Rouge, LA. We spent some time at the beach in Panama City and the mountains in Gatlinburg, TN.

I became closer to some wonderful friends this past year who have made the year so much fun!

Those are the people that have truly made my year!

Some negative things have also happened in my life in the past year. I found out I was pregnant and had a miscarriage in late September and my last grandfather passed away in November.

“Life is full of ups and downs. The trick is to enjoy the ups and have courage during the downs.”

I’m excited to see what 2012 will bring! So far things are looking exciting.

Have a great year! Make it count!