I did it! I totally finished my first half marathon last Saturday!!

Though I would not exactly describe it as smooth sailing, I know I gave it my best and I’m proud of myself both for training and for finishing. I crossed the finish line with my sister-in-law, Mary.

And, funny story, almost nothing about race weekend was smooth sailing! James and I made the drive to Louisville on Friday to meet his sisters who were running the race with me on Saturday. So, now, imagine a few things that could possibly go wrong… Maybe one of us doesn’t make it to the race expo to pick up her bib? Maybe all the runners end up staying out way too late the night before the race because we all got to Louisville so late? Maybe one of us drops her phone into the toilet at midnight the night before the race? Maybe it starts raining at mile 6 and we’re running through big puddles at Churchill Downs? Maybe one of us gets hurt during the race? Maybe one of us gets a flat tire on the way to lunch after the race?

Or maybe ALL OF THOSE THINGS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!

Yup. Mary never made it to the expo (luckily they let me pick up her bib, despite the fact that they had repeatedly told us we would not be allowed to pick up bibs for other runners). We all ended up at dinner at like 9:30pm. Didn’t get back to our hotel until midnight, at which point I allowed my phone to fall out of my back pocket into the toilet! We knew rain was on the forecast, and sure enough it started coming down when Mary and I were at about mile 6. The puddles were worse than the downpour. My other sister-in-law Debbie had long since left us in her dust, but she started feeling pain in her foot about halfway through her race and had to slow down. And as we were driving away from our hotel, trying to navigate through still partially-blocked streets (the marathon was just finishing, so they were just starting to re-open the streets of Louisville), we cut a curb too close and busted a tire! UGH!!

I feel like there’s some kind of life metaphor in there… something about still managing to run your race under totally imperfect conditions…

We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying our visit with James’ sisters and his cousins in Kentucky. And our road trips there and back weren’t bad – thanks in large part to the Dinosaur Train DVD’s we had borrowed from the library just for the occasion, and also thanks to James planning some stops along the way for the kids to stretch their legs. Here are pics of our four stops on the way up last Friday.

On the drive home, the kids took long naps in the car so we didn’t have to stop as often (thank goodness!).

I feel like I need a vacation to recover from race weekend, but instead the boys and I have a very busy week of therapies and evaluations! It took a while to get things going, but this month Calvin and Henry’s therapy schedule will be in full swing. I’m looking forward to keeping up my running without the pressure of the race looming 🙂