Half-Marathons

The half marathon has slowly become my favorite race. I love the challenge of running hard for so long but I also love the strategy that comes into play when running your best at the distance. I enjoy that you can go out slowly and pick up the pace in the second half. I especially love gutting it out the last few miles of a half. The relatively quick recovery time and lack of hobbled walking is also a plus. Now that I've looked back over some training logs, I'm convinced I need to give the marathon another try. The half may be my favorite race distance but I'm curious if the marathon could vie for that spot if I give it the chance. The main reason why the marathon has left me heartbroken multiple times still stands true: you train for so long for one race and if weather or illness keep you from running the race you trained for, you're just out of luck. You can't just pick up and try again the following week or month like you can with many other race distances. But I still want to give it another go for a couple of reasons. Mainly because I feel like my PR of 3:40:05 in the marathon is the weakest of my PRs and will be the easiest to break. Also because when I looked back over my training sheet I kept from my fastest marathon, my highest mileage week was 38 miles and that was with a 20 mile long run! I really feel like with a respectable number of miles under my belt the marathon is less likely to disappoint. Although I put in enough training to finish a marathon in the past, I really feel like I put in the bare minimum and if I work just a little bit harder I can see much bigger results! I still plan to focus on the half in the fall so I can try to crush my PR but I'm toying with the idea of a winter or spring marathon, most likely I'll be running a full marathon by fall of 2018.

Me, Thomas, and dad taking off at the start of the 2015 Prairie Fire Half Marathon.

Even though the marathon has been the main source of heartbreak for me during my running career, the half marathon is close behind with my performance this spring. This past season I trained really hard to run a half-marathon PR and when it didn't happen, I was immediately curious how my time stacked up to all my other half-marathon times. I've never really kept track of my races other than recording them in my training logs so I didn't have a list of half-marathons I've done and had to go through my training logs as well as look for results online. I threw away all my training logs from before 2011 when Ty and I moved into our house after our wedding so I know I'm probably missing a few that I didn't find when googling results. I wanted to keep a list of my half-marathons for future reference and figured I might as well throw my marathons in there too (just in case I have one to add in the next year or so). Now I need to run a 1:33 half so I have all times from 1:31-1:36 covered! Here are my half-marathon times in order from fastest to slowest.

Running toward the finish of my slowest half marathon, the 2012 Route 66, pregnant with Carter.

Half Marathons:
1:31:35, Mighty Mo Half Marathon, 2007
1:31:49, Route 66 Half Marathon, 2016
1:32:39, Route 66 Half Marathon, 2007
1:34:11, Run for the Ranch Half Marathon, 2007 
1:34:13, Aquarium Run Half Marathon, 2017
1:35:25, Little Rock Half Marathon, 2009
1:35:43, Route 66 Half Marathon, 2015 (8 months after Elise was born)
1:36:59, Jenks Half Marathon, 2013 (10 months after Carter was born)
1:38:05, Prairie Fire Half Marathon, 2013 (9 months after Carter was born)
1:41:08, Prairie Fire Half Marathon, 2015 (7 months after Elise was born)
1:51:40, Route 66 Half Marathon, 2011 (ran the race sick)
1:56:44, Prairie Fire Half Marathon, 2014 (14 weeks pregnant with Elise)
2:01:50, Hospital Hill Half Marathon, 2008 (I ran this one after being sick for over a month and learned to respect the distance!)
2:18:12, Route 66 Half Marathon, 2012 (32 weeks pregnant with Carter)

Totals:
14 half-marathons
2 run while pregnant
4 run less than a year after giving birth

Marathons:
3:40:05, Route 66 Marathon, 2008
3:43:04, Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, 2009 (The wind was out of control.)
3:58:04, Route 66 Marathon, 2009 (Ran with a sinus infection and bronchitis.)
Obviously it well past time for a marathon PR as well! 

Running the infamous windy 2009 OKC marathon.

Wordless Wednesday

Searching for and picking wild strawberries in our backyard.

This is what Skippy does at naptime when I sit down.

Free bagel at Panera, thanks to my mom.

Carter took some pictures of me and Elise while we were playing at the mall play area.

No matter how much stuff is on the bed, Harper will always find a spot to lay!

Elise staring at a picture of otters in our book.

Elise decided to eat her cake with two forks.

Playing in some big puddles.

Oma took Elise to the store to pick out a dolly.

Carter taking care of Elise's doll while she was in the other room.

Trying out new Easter stamps we got on clearance at Wal-Mart for 25 cents!

We went to the playground and Elise decided she'd rather play in the car.

Carter said he was driving water balloons to Texas.

She was so excited to find an otter puppet at the library.

Carter was making his hands into a crocodile to chomp the bubbles.

Carter made this while I was rocking Elise before naptime.