New PR for 1st Half of the Year!

April 25th I ran my first half-marathon of the year and it was a great race! Start time wasn’t until 9:30, so I didn’t have to wake up too early and the weather ended up being perfect. I ate my usual pre-race oatmeal that I swear by, downed a decent amount of water, and even had enough time for some green tea. I convinced my boyfriend to run with me because our university was sponsoring students and how can you turn down a free race registration?! So we hopped in the car and had about a 45 minute drive to the race. This was my first race since I got injured last fall after the Detroit Marathon and I was ready for a PR. I had worked my butt off during training and it was reflecting in my times for my long runs leading up to the race, but you really never know how race day is going to go.

Once we got to the race, we took pictures with other students from school also running. After that we all went our separate ways and started to get ready for our races. My boyfriend can run faster than me, so we decided that we would run together to start and then go our separate ways when we felt ready (aka he would blow past me). Once the 9:30 hit we were off and I felt really good, but I had to force myself to slow down make sure I could sustain a consistent pace throughout the race. The race was pretty perfect, I felt good, kept an average 8:02 pace, and I was pushing myself just enough. I had placed 3rd in my age group at this race last year and I knew when I crossed the finish line I PRed. My boyfriend finished about three minutes before me and I honestly couldn’t believe I held my pace so well. I finished in 1:45:15 which placed me first in my age group! My legs weren’t even dead and I felt amazing!

Our University’s mascot was even out on the course!

First race of the season could not have gone any smoother. Since then I have been in recovery mode because in about a week and a half I have my second half of the year and it’s extremely hilly. It will also be my first race involving trail running, so that should be interesting! Hopefully, I’ll have another great race day! Two days before that I have a 5k in Detroit which should be a really fun relaxing run downtown. After the hustle and bustle of that weekend it will be time to relax, recover, strength train, and get ready for marathon training to start in June. I am just so happy that I can finally wake up, throw on shorts and a tank top and just go run before half of the world is up.

Side-note: I have some recipes I will be posting soon that are absolutely delicious!!

Until next time,

Happy running everyone! 🙂