PEOPLE! I’m back. Well, kinda anyway. Remember back when I was talking about my goals for the month and I said there was a busy week at my non-writing job where I wouldn’t get much writing done? That’s this week.

I wanted to take the time to share with y’all a little bit about my first official race, which was the Nationwide Children’s Hospital fundraiser Marathon and Half-Maratho. And, it was utterly, totally, 100 % amazing! (And also a big reason I didn’t post for the last two days, cause I was pretty tired.)

I’m not sure when I last had so much fun. There was a lot of pain involved because hey! Running is a lot of work, but I not only did the half-marathon, but I beat my personal record by right around 18 minutes, which is crazy. I kept a steady 12 minute pace.

I’m already looking forward to getting faster so I can hopefully, maybe, Lord willing, do next years half-marathon (or full marathon!) at a much better pace.

A lovely group of us went together (including my best friend!), although we didn’t stay together as we ran. (I did keep up with my tall brother for the first three miles, then realized I needed to conserve my energy a bit. He ended up being way faster than me, so it’s a good thing I dropped back.) It was fun having the accountability during the last few months as we trained, and then getting to celebrate after we made it across the finish line.

To any of y’all who haven’t been around Noveltea long: I’ve dreamed of running a marathon every since I was a little girl, but especially when I had Lyme disease. I always thought it would be a wonderful way to celebrate being healthy again. I’ve been training since February to run the whole marathon, but then some things came up, so I could only do the half. It still took a lot of training though, and really helped me get a lot healthier. And, it was totally a dream come true.

There were 18,000 runners (from 47 states and several different countries), 3,000 volunteers, and nearly 100,000 people cheering us on. It was glorious. Since we were raising money for the Children’s Hospital, they had a child from the hospital at each mile, waving, giving high-fives (by holding a foam hand we could hit as we ran past), and thanking us. I can’t even explain how amazing and neat and wonderful it was to take part in the day. I seriously can hardly wait to do it again.

Along with the thousands of adults, there were also hundreds of kids who looked like they were between the ages of 3-8. They were standing by the roadside with their parents giving us high fives, thumbs up, and cheering us on. So many people held signs thanking us for helping their kids by donating to the hospital. (The “fee” the runners paid to enter the marathon/half-marathon all went to the hospital.) 

We were praying for good weather, and it ended up being totally beautiful. I can’t hardly imagine a better day to run. It did get a little bit warm as the day wore on, but since the running started at 7:30, we were done before it got too hot. 

And that, my friends, is a brief overview of the marathon/half-marathon. You’ll most likely be hearing about it again some time after I’ve been able to collect my thoughts better.

I only had vague ideas of what to expect since I’ve never done anything like this before, so if y’all are like me and have any questions about what the day was like, I’d be happy to answer them for you if I can.

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Have y’all run any races? I’d be delighted to hear about it if you have!