My brain right now is “half marathon half marathon half marathon ooooo I’m getting a Tiffany’s necklace at the finish line half marathon half marathon half marathon”. So yes, you might say I have half marathon on the brain. It took a lot of self control to not start writing about the race while I was taking a chemistry quiz this morning.
While I was leaving work yesterday one of my coworkers asked if I had anything fun planned for the weekend (I don’t work on Friday’s with my school schedule), as soon as the words “it’s the weekend of my half marathon” came out of my mouth, my heart started pitter pattering. It’s here, Nike Women’s Half Marathon weekend is here. Tomorrow morning I’ll be leaving for Washington DC with my parents to run my second half marathon.
Part of me is like “Kayla, why are you SO nervous, you’ve already run a half marathon before, and it was fineeee” but the other part of me is screaming “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You barely ran all winter”. Deep down inside I know I didn’t train for this race nearly as hard as I should have, but I’m hoping all the cross training I did during this brutal winter will get me to that finish line.
I didn’t tell anyone this before my first half marathon, but in my head I was hoping I would finish in under 2:30. I don’t know how I landed on that number as my goal, but that’s what I was secretly hoping for… and I finished in 2:20:30 much to my delight. In theory I would love to beat that time on Sunday, but in actuality I know I didn’t train nearly as hard for this race as I did for the first one.
I keep telling people half jokingly, half serious that my goals for this half marathon (well besides finishing in one piece) are 1.) Don’t shatter my iPhone at mile 12 like I did last time (I blame the tiara + boa that we were given moments before I flung my phone accidentally) and 2.) Don’t take a bathroom break like you did last time. Yeah belly, you better cooperate this time! I’m thinking these goals will be attainable :).
Moments after running my first half marathon, I was walking with my parent’s to their car and mentioned that I wish I would have run the race for charity. I knew in my heart that I wanted my next big race to have a fundraising component to it as well. I was really interested in running the Nike Women’s Half in DC and excited when I found out that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training was involved with the race.
When I was 3 years old my father was diagnosed with non-hodgkin’s lymphoma. To be honest, I don’t remember much about the whole process because I was young, but I grew up being told my dad was sick and went to special doctors. Soon after he was diagnosed he decided to pursue his dream of racing cars and used his racing to raise money and awareness for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In the mid 90’s my dad actually raced across America in his race car while also raising awareness for bone marrow transplants. I am happy to say 20 years later he is doing fine and is incredibly luck to have not needed any drastic treatments over the years. I know not everyone with this disease is this lucky though. It’s truly an honor to be able to fundraise for a charity so close to my heart and run this race with my dad in mind.
Even though I’m feeling a bit nervous about all of this, seeing the pictures of the expo and runners already in DC gets me all excited again. There’s nothing quite like the energy of running a race, and I feel like the energy at this particular race is going to be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
13.1 miles, let’s do this !
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