PF Chang's Rock n Roll Half Marathon

I did it.  Don't ask me how.  Work, Life, Kids, and the Holidays interferred with proper training.  (Hmmm, Haven't we all heard these excuses before?) 

Peter (my brother in law) and I both had signed up for full marathon but couldn't get our training done.  We decided to power through and use the race as our Sunday work out.  I think we were both prepared to have a pretty awful race.  Before the race we decided to run a couple miles to get out of the crowd and then start our 3 minute run/1 minute walk.  At our 3 mile mark we ran into another good friend who was running her first Half Marathon.  She was so nervous and scared.  She was also recovering from a sinus infection and had just finished day 10 of her antibiotic.  

Even though we were not perfectly trained, the three of us had a really nice time.  We chit chatted and all stuck together.  I think all of us would have not done as well if we didn't have eachother.  It might have been my favorite Half Marathon!  At mile 12, my friend had a really bad blister, and I was spent, so we started walking a little longer than a minute.  We told Peter to go on without us b/c he was feeling very strong.  We rallied and eventually got to the finish line.  My time was 2:42.  I'm ok with it.  I can't expect to be awesome when I don't train properly.

Before I go, I just want to say, the 3/1 method works!  It really helps your endurance.  I learned about this method while training for Ironman the first go around.  Some of the more fit folks were using a 9/1 or 6/1.  The funny thing about this method is that if you do it over a long distance, you come pretty darn close to your time if you were to run the whole thing.  Buddies also help.  We kept eachother going when one of us wanted to quit. 

I think Peter and I are going to try to do another Half Marathon in February.  I want to see if I can build on this race.  Wish me luck!