Well yesterday I did my 4th half marathon.  When i had originally signed up this year I had signed up to run the full marathon, my first full marathon, but that of course was before we got pregnant.  When I found out I was pregnant I really still wanted to participate because the race is just so much fun.  So I decided to walk it with my aunt and her friend who had signed up to walk the half already (this of course made my mother sigh with relief when i told her that was my plan).

The morning was overcast but still a nice, and it warmed up a little as we walked.  As walkers we had estimated we would take close to 4 hours to finish so we were pretty much in the back of the line to get out of the start line, corral 37 of 39 (ugh).  So it was about 8am when we actually started.   Walking the half was VERY different from running/jogging the half.  when you are on the course, most of the spectators have seen their people and have left for the finish line.  You don’t get to see the kids waiting with their cute signs for mommy or daddy, and as you come in to down town, all the other racers are leaving and there was no one lined up along the streets.  As we walked through the water stations, because we were so far back they were always starting to clean up. And the portapotties.  OMG, looking at the stats of the race finishers there were 7000 some males, and 12000 some females.  Lets just say that when you are among the last group of people to get to the bathrooms after all those ladies there were many a toiletpaperless stall.  Luckily i was with seasoned walkers who always carry tissues with them.  And because of little Timmy in my belly, we spent a total of about 10 minutes at various pit stops.  At mile 10 I was fed up with stopping and vowed to make it to the end (thankfully I did.  walkers are much more chatty, and carry a lot more stuff!  Runners tend to have everything in their little hidden pockets, but walkers tend to carry back packs, and large fanny packs.

At the end of the day we went the exact same distance as the runners, but for me the sense of accomplishment was not quite the same.  Even last time at the whidbey Island half I ran a slower time than the last two, but I felt like I had a great race.  I never thought I would say this, but I think i like running long distances better than I like walking them. There is one really nice thing about walking instead of running though, and that is that your body does not hurt so much at the end of it all.  I do appreciate that.

This morning I had a little bit of post race blues. last year i took a few days to recover and then started training for a triathlon, but this year no such luck.  no more big races until next year.  I have my eye on some 5-10k races around seattle and would love to run them (assuming running still feels good).  At the moment I am about 22 weeks pregnant so I will just play it by ear.  I am certainly starting to feel the weight that I have put on but so far I haven’t had much in the way of pregnancy discomfort (lets hope it stays that way).  I may try to set up a schedule for myself of a leasurely triathlon type of training at the gym, but that would be more about getting in cross training in the event that the weather actually gets too warm around here or i start to not feel like running so much.

And of course now we have ALLLLLLLllll the baby stuff to get ready.  Those 30 diapers aren’t going to make themselves you know.

Anyway.

i will post some of the pictures that mario took of the race soon.

later.