My First Half Marathon!

I did it! I ran my first 13.1 miles ever! 

The Inaugural Philly Love Run. 13.1 miles in pouring rain, with 8,000 of my new best friends.

I'm a little excited, if you couldn't guess.

I signed up for this race last October, and convinced Kevin and 4 other friends to join me. 

This picture was taken prior to the race, when we were all still dry and warm! 

This is a really great group of runners. Each of them inspires me, and I felt fortunate to share my first Half Marathon with them.

Andrea is one of the most positive people I know! We went to High school together, and although we live more than an hour from each other, we've done a couple of Tri's together, and now a half!

Adrienne and I ran several long training runs together all winter. Having a friend to talk to, makes 10 miles seem fairly short. It was her first half, also. 

Lisa is another friend from High school. We ran track and cross country together back then!  She lives quite far away, but thanks to the world of Facebook, we've been able to reconnect over the past few years. She's the speed demon of the group.

Darlene and I met on my first 10k.  We encouraged each other up a long, never ending hill during that race. It was great to share this experience with her too.

And Kevin. We didn't do a single training run together all year long. I like conversation on runs, and he does not. Despite that,  one of the best thngs of the race, turned out to be him! We did not anticipate running together, but due to a few unforeseen circumstances, we ended up at each others side for the full race! He didn't talk a lot, but he did keep me laughing with his jokes. 

The race itself was cold and rainy! Philly had a record breaking 3 inches of rain on that day! Just to put that in context, if it had been snow, the race would've been cancelled. Because that equals about 30" of snow! 

When all was said and done, I finished at the tail end of my goal time range. The rain, and a knee injury held me back. 

But, the course was beautiful..even in the rain. The volunteers were fabulous, and there were many wonderful spectators on the course. I don't know yet if I'll ever do another half marathon. But if I do, The Philly Love Run would definitely be on my list of possibilities.