Louisiana Half Marathon 2014

On January 19th, I ran the Louisiana Half Marathon in Baton Rouge for the third year! Ever since their inaugural event in 2012 this has been far and away my favorite race. Not only is the course really pretty and almost completely flat, but the weather is typically just right for running this time of year also. The thing that absolutely impresses me the most about Louisiana though is their Finish Festival. They really do it up right. Plus, this race was my PR race last year when I finally broke 1:40 for a half. Lots of good things going on in Baton Rouge.

This year was a little bit different though. The course, the weather and the finish festival were all the same as I expected, but this year I got to experience the Louisiana Half as a pregnant runner! This is a completely new thing for me, when I was pregnant with my son I was still in my obese, pre-runner days. I can say with confidence that I never exercised a single time during that pregnancy.

Quick down and dirty on how this happened and then back to the race: (Ok, not really … you know HOW it happened) but …

On December 9th, I finally bit the bullet and did something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, but never worked the nerve up to do until then. I went for a consultation with a Plastic Surgeon to see about having some post weightloss “work” done. He asked me about plans to have any future children and I told him the truth that Tim and I have been trying on and off for about 5 years to have another baby, but that after being on fertility meds, having surgery to clear out blocked fallopian tubes and a miscarriage that it just wasn’t happening for us. But I couldn’t promise that it would never happen.

Two days later I was ready to schedule my surgery and was about to take a large sum of money out of the bank, but before I did that I decided on a whim to take a pregnancy test … an lo and behold, it was positive.

I’m 12 weeks 3 days pregnant right now, I was just over 10 weeks when I ran the Louisiana Half. I had already decided a long time ago to run the race with Tim this year, but with the news it worked out just perfectly because I didn’t feel up to going all out anyway.

On race morning Drew, Lauren, Tim and I rode the free shuttle bus from our hotel to the start. We all gathered in the gear check building to keep warm before time to head to the starting line.

I have no idea why Tim is tickling Drew’s ear in the above picture.

Anyway …

The race was a blast as usual, and running with Tim was very comfortable … for the most part. There was that once when I had to stop and pee and then almost slung my uterus out of my body running a stupid-fast pace trying to catch back up to him. Uteruses are heavy.

Anyway again …

We crossed the finish line together in 2:11:something, a new PR for Tim!

We immediately headed the the VIP tent (one of the perks at Louisiana for being a member of Half Fanatics). The tent is full of fancy food, all kinds of alcoholic beverages, massage tables, a big screen TV broadcasting the finish line, etc.

I have to admit I was a tiny bit bitter that I couldn’t take advantage of the bottle of free wine, mimosas, beer and bloody mary’s. But I made sure to make up for it in food and CAKE BALLS…

We relaxed for a little while under the tent and watched the live finish line feed, until the time got close for Drew to be finishing. Then we headed over to watch him finally BOSTON QUALIFY!

That is a big deal, my friends!

A successful weekend all the way around, I’d say. Hopefully we can find a way to make it happen again next year!