Bentonville Half

I ran my first half marathon last weekend.  Woohoo!

I had so much fun during the race.  There is definitely such a thing as adrenaline……I have never ran this fast for this long in my life!

I planned several months ago that I would do this half marathon and started running more regularly again.  I found a great running partner in Chrissy and we would hit the pavement together.  Our goal was to run it in under 2 hours (my personal goal was 1:55).

This was us before and after the race

The race started at 7am and it was cold out……I usually don't run in cold weather, because it hurts my knee.  I was freezing the first 3-4 miles, but then I warmed up and it was actually perfect running conditions.

I came across these 3 (and Scott of course) around 7.5 miles.  Their signs sure made me laugh.  It was so good to see so many familiar faces along the course.

The one that says "Hurry Nora pooped" was Hannah's idea……she knows how much Scott dislikes to change a dirty diaper.

After one of my long training runs the kids asked where I ran to and I told them that I ran past Lowe's and they were quite impressed.  The night before the race I was talking to Evan about coming to cheer me on in the morning and he said "Are you running to Lowe's again?"  I told him that I was going in that direction, but going actually further than that and he said "Can you stop at Lowe's and get me and Hannah a present?"

The hill at mile 13 is pretty brutal, but I made it and all of the signs and people cheering were very distracting and entertaining. We have such a great running community here and it was wonderful to see all of the support.  There were a lot of signs that made me laugh.

Sprinting to the finish line…..

I crushed my goal and came in at 1:44.  I am very happy with my race results and look forward to doing another half marathon.

And since I burnt 1420 calories I had a big piece of cake that afternoon at Allison's baby shower!

Here are a few of the official race photos

It was such a great race and I definitely had a little bit of a runners high at the end.