Safari Park Half Marathon

Many of you know I have been training for this Half Marathon since January and have been following my progress via FACEBOOK. After having Selah I wanted to set a fitness goal for myself. Inspired by the show the Biggest Loser I signed up for a Half Marathon giving myself three months to train for the run. Today March 13th 2011 was the day I had been training for.
My good friend Melissa Lull and I registered together, we had an amazing dinner the night before and woke up at 4:15am (3:15am because of daylight savings), ate breakfast and headed to the Safari Park for the big event.

We arrived at the park just before 6am, checked in our gear, stretched and warmed up. It was freezing! At this point my nerves had settled and my adrenaline kicked in. There was no turning back now. The race began and all 3600 participants started the 13.1 mile trek!

During my training I always had a hard time with the first couple miles, my body kept saying, "why are we doing this again?" That wasn't the case today. The first 5 miles were a breeze, we made it to the 6.5 mile mark before we stopped. Melissa needed to make a pit stop and I walked waiting for her to catch up. About a quarter mile later we were back to business. We passed mile marker 7 and mile marker 8 felt like FOREVER to show up. Just before we started to get discouraged we saw a mile marker sign ahead and to our surprise it was mile 9! We were stoked!!!We kept a good pace and right around mile 11 I was starting to struggle a bit. We hit a GU station (it's an energy supplement) walked for a minute on the uphill to catch my breath then started back up again. Seeing the mile 12 marker gave me a light at the end of the tunnel. After we passed mile 13 we could hear and see the festivities at the finish line. So we ran hard to finish strong.

Aside from my wedding day and the birth of my three daughters, crossing that finish line was one the most rewarding experiences ever! I set a goal to finish within 3 hours, I trained hard and I finished with time to spare. Finishing time was 2:33:54. I crossed the line next to one of my best friends Melissa Lull, had an amazing group of girls cheering us on ( Nicole, Jessica, baby Whitney and Shara) and have had an amazing support team of family and friends encouraging me on this journey.

They handed us some water and our Half Marathon Finishers Medal. We cooled down then found our cheer squad.




I was inspired by the Biggest Loser Show to get out and do this. The contestants have always said, " If I can do this anyone can." I took that challenge and found it to be true! So I forward this challenge to all my family and friends...we are all at different levels, some of us runners, some barely able to walk, we gotta start somewhere. Set a goal, work hard and through the strength of Christ all things are possible.