CASA Half Marathon Race Report

Last Saturday, I ran the CASA Half Marathon in Spearfish Canyon. The CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) Program seeks to promote and protect the best interests of abused and neglected children involved in court proceedings through the advocacy efforts of trained volunteers, so it's for a really great cause. I have ran this course 2 other times and I love it because it's a gradual downhill all through Spearfish canyon. It's a very scenic course and I even saw people (probably people who don't live in the area) taking pictures along the race!

On Friday night, I had made plans with a new friend of mine who I met via Sparkpeople.com, Heather, to eat some carbs and stay the night at my house so she wasn't driving the 2 hours from her house to get to the race at 645am. We had a great time eating and chatting with each other and I know my Grandma is going to freak out when she finds out that I met someone online and then met them in real life. She thinks it's just crazy! :) But I will make sure to tell her that Heather was not some serial killer and that we had a great time! We were up bright and early at 530 as we had to get to Spearfish to get on the bus at 645am so they could take us up the canyon and then we got to run down. After getting our shirts (they look pretty much the same every year - grey and blue or white and blue - but it's for a good cause so I'm not complaining!) we were on the bus and headed up the canyon! We got there just 10 minutes before the race was going to start so we got in line for the porta-potty and before we knew it, they had yelled GO! Heather sped off in front of me as she wanted to try and run the race in under 2 hours and I pretty much knew my race would be around 2:20 because that seems to be my magic number lately! The first 8 miles were AWESOME! Not a mile was over 10 minutes. I felt like I was flying. But all that ended at mile 8 and my legs just didn't want to move fast anymore. So, I slowed it down and ran a mile just over 10 minutes. Still not too bad. But then things got really bad and all my legs wanted to do was walk. Well, I thought I would take a little walk break to give my legs a break and then just start running again but I walked for a little longer than I should have so I didn't allow myself to walk the next mile but then miles 11 and 12, I was spent and had to walk both of a lot of those miles. We made it to the bike path which is supposed to mean that we had half a mile left. But while I was on said bike path, my Garmin said that I had run 13.1 miles already and I still wasn't at the finish line! When it was all said and done, the Garmin read 13.3 miles so I think the course was a little long. Either way, my time was 2:19:06, which I predicted from the beginning that it would be around 2:20 so I was not surprised! Here is how my miles looked:

Mile 1 - 9:35 (I'll take it!)

Mile 2 - 9:26 (Oooo, even better!)

Mile 3 - 9:16 (that's what I'm talking about!)

Mile 4 - 9:37 (oops, I guess that last mile made me a little tired)

Mile 5 - 9:42 (still ok, under 10, I'm happy)

Mile 6 - 9:44 (if I could keep this up the whole race, I would be elated!)

Mile 7 - 9:47 - (thinking I could run a 2:10!)

Mile 8 - 9:58 (still under 10 - it's going well!)

Mile 9 - 10:08 (uh oh, getting tired and HOT)

Mile 10 - 12:25 (really hot now, had to start walking, not happy with myself)

Mile 11 - 11:20 (no walking, just ran a slower mile)

Mile 12 - 12:52 (I'm dead)

Mile 13 - 11:59 (yep, still dead)

.3 (not .1!) - 3:42 (where is that darn finish line?!)

So there you have it! It was a great race and saw lots of people that I know and that's always fun! The race had a great turnout this year with 250 half marathoners and 166 for the 5K. My friend Amy finished the 5K 3rd in her age group and my friend Rebecca walked the 5K with her kids while her hubby was up the canyon with me running the half. It's always so fun to see our friends at the local races.

Thanks to Heather for putting up with me and my family for the night and keeping me company while I was getting ready and on the bus so I didn't freak out too much! Let's do it again sometime! Oh, right we are on August 8th and then again on August 16th!! :)

After the race, Chris left really quickly as it was getting pretty hot and he had a 3 hour run to complete so I took the kids to Walmart and did the grocery shopping and then got some lunch and we took it to the park to wait for Chris to get done. We ate and then played and them came home only for me to leave again to go running! YES! RUNNING! Can you believe it?! :) I had 7 more miles to run as I needed to get 20 miles done today in preparation for my full marathon which is just 3 short weeks away! So, I headed to the gym because I wasn't running in 80+ temps after that race and I ran 7 more miles on the track, which took me 1:25:25. All in all, I ran 20 (.3!) miles today and it took me about 3:45, but the marathon is 6.2 miles more than that so we are looking at a potential 5 hour something marathon, but I am going out there with no time goal; I just want to finish it as it's my first one! Okay, I'm done now! Thanks for reading! :)