I did it! I did it!

I did it!! On Saturday, I completed my first mini-marathon!

After completing the Louisville Triple Crown of Running over the last two months (5K, 10K and 10 Miler), my final race was the Derby Festival MiniMarathon - 13.1 miles. I'll be honest, since running the Papa John's 10 Miler one month ago, my training had been pretty crappy. I tried to continue running, but my body just didn't want to cooperate and I didn't get the distance runs in that I felt I should to be prepared for 13.1 miles. But it all worked out ok and I did much better than I ever expected to do. My chip time was 1:51:04, a 8:28 pace. I was SUPER happy with this. I had hoped to keep my pace under 9 minutes and thought I could do it in the 8:40 range, so to be below that made me very happy.

Ronnie brought the girls to the race and I was so happy to see them as I neared the finish line. It definitely gave me an extra little push to sprint the finish! We had a good time hanging out after the race with friends who had finished and waiting for others to finish. The girls enjoyed my post-race food. Kendall ate my bagel and Ella ate pretty much everything else. :) As I mentioned in a previous post, five other people from our church ran the race and we all wore matching "Running for Connie" shirts with Romans 8:28 on the back in memory of Connie Towles, our preacher's wife who used to run the mini and passed away in December after a long battle with cancer.

I'm so glad that I was able to participate in the Triple Crown and the MiniMarathon. I have to extend a very special THANK YOU to my husband, who gave up a lot of time for me to train, especially on Saturday mornings! He's the best!