Williamsburg Half Marathon – MAY!!!

The May Half Marathon was the ‘Run the Achievable Dream’ in Williamsburg, Virginia on May 20th.  What a great race!  If you are looking for a rolling hilly scenic small half marathon that is still done well, this is a great race for you! 

I had planned from the beginning of my 12in12in2012 journey to run with my friend Mayanne during this race.  Throughout Mayanne’s running career, I have assumed the job of coach, mentor, most understanding person in the world and meanest person in the world to Mayanne.  I have straight up told her ‘No’ when she wanted to walk.  But this time around, I told her that there would be no pushing or telling her ‘No’ during this race.  My plan was to just let her feel it out and be there in support mode to entertain her….and maybe do a little coaching! 

Many of my friends (including Mayanne) and family were starting to doubt whether I would be able to quell the need for speed and just be laid back about this half.   But I’m pretty good about knowing when to give myself a break.  And I enjoy having a purpose, and my purpose was to run with Mayanne.

So, honestly, I had a BLAST!!  It was a beautiful course and a great running weather day, just slightly overcast and a little cool.  We jogged along and enjoyed the view, people watching and just being with each other.  During the out/back portion we were able to look for our fellow friend runners in which we screamed at them and high fived them.  We got to see my husband Dave as he was doing the out/back portion of the race.  This was Dave’s first half marathon and he rocked it with a 1:51 time!!  So proud of him!  But, I’m pretty sure that he had an excellent coach! Then we got to see our friend Jim and Mayanne’s husband Anthony.  Jim was doing his 2^nd half and Anthony also was doing his first half marathon and they also rocked it out!

Mayanne and I have a tendency to get philosophical during our runs, so we can use quite a few miles to talk about our life dreams, politics or whatever comes up!  I was so impressed and like a proud mama when Mayanne took every hill and ran up them!  She was such a trooper and her perseverance during the race really inspired me.  I’ve been complaining so much about hills and she didn’t complain once, she just did them!  No more complaining for me!

Initially, Mayanne had stated that she was going to push her competitive nature down and not allow herself to get worked up with people passing her.  But around mile 11, I noticed that this one girl would fly past us on the downhills, only to stop and walk slowly up the hills where we would in turn pass her.  Everytime we would pass her, she would look over and glance at us.  We all know when someone has you in their ‘cross hairs’ and this girl definitely had us in hers.   So I pointed this out to Mayanne and said ‘Now don’t get too worked up, but that girl really wants to beat us and I want you to beat her’.  It was pretty much GAME ON at that point and the poor girl really had no chance after that.  Mayanne picked up our pace and passed her pretty quickly for good. 

If you read my blog, you know that I like to sprint the finishes.  Some people would say that you didn’t give it your all in the race if you can sprint the finish.  But no matter how hard I run a race, I can almost always sprint the finish.  Honestly, I think my ability to do this is just from playing soccer.  In soccer, you train yourself that no matter how tired you are, you must always have another sprint left in you.  That sprint at the end is my dessert.  I will eat and eat but you always leave room for dessert.   And most times the crowd freaks out when you sprint the finish because you stand out to them.  It is a bit of a glory moment and I’ll take it!  But when I run with others, I have a horrible loyalty moment toward the end when I realize that I have room for ‘dessert’ and they don’t want dessert at all.  In fact, ‘dessert’ is literally going to make them vomit!  But I’ve finally learned that you run your own race and I need to do whatever makes me happy in my race.  So, when we entered the stadium to make the final lap, I left Mayanne and took off at a full out sprint! 

And it was awesome!!  As I ran around the track at my perceived sprint, there was a bunch of girls there cheering who started screaming ‘You get it girl!’ and as I sprinted toward the finish line, the announcer said ‘We need to find out this girl’s name!’.  I could hear my husband and our friends Anthony and Jim cheering.  And I had a huge smile on my face.

This was the race I needed at this stage of my journey.  I needed something fun and lighthearted.  All of a sudden, I realized that I never verbalized the 12in12in2012 goal of having fun.  This race reminded me that races are fun!  I know that I knew that deep down.  But my race times and my disappointment in them had completely overshadowed that.  

I have to thank Mayanne for this race because she made it a blast for me.  She took care of all the logistics and set me up to have a good time.  She has always been very intuitive as to my moods and sometimes your friends just know best.  Thanks to her, I was reminded to have some fun in this journey. I am so proud of her for having completed her 2^nd half marathon. 

San Diego is this weekend!  I’m so excited that every time I read an email from Team in Training, I get nauseous!  My amazing cousins will be out there to cheer me on and I just can’t wait to run this race!  This race will mark my half way point for 12in12in2012. 6 races down, 6 to go!!  Pretty crazy!!