First Half Marathon Race! | Detroit International Half Marathon

In October I did the Detroit International Half Marathon race for the first time. This is a 13.1 mile race and I did it with basically no training. 

In November of last year my mom brought the idea up that we should both do the half marathon. I thought it could be fun to do it and I thought it would be a fun thing to do together! So the year goes on and I still hasn't started any training. I am not a active runner. I enjoy running but am too lazy to run if that makes sense haha. So we get down to about a month before the race and by this time my mom had told me she couldn't do it. I finally decide I'm still going to do it and that I should at least start running at this point. I was feeling nervous for the race and didn't know if I would be ale to do it. By the time it was half marathon day the longest I had ran was seven miles at a time. Yikes. 

Come race day and I wasn't feeling nervous at all for the run. The only this I was nervous about was the weather. Although I got lucky with warm weather, It was supposed to rain. I did not want to run in the pouring rain. Luckily, the rain held off the whole race and it only started sprinkling when I was walking to the car after. I didn't have a goal time or pace, my goal was to finish. The first five miles I was feeling great! I held a 14:55 mile pace. When I hit mile six I started to get a side cramp but I didn't let it slow me down and powered through it. By about mile nine came my toes were hurting me. I had never ran this far at a time and my shoes were telling me they were too small. I think my shoes were half a size too small leaving my toes cramped. Besides my toes, I felt fine and really did want to keep running. I do think my shoes slowed me down and I could've ran better and faster if I had properly fitting shoes. Something every runner tells you is that getting properly fitting shoes is important. I now agree. I finished in 3:21 with a 15:23 average pace. Now I'm not upset with my time. As I said before I didn't have a goal time but I was aiming to finish. I did it! 

After the race I was very sore! It only lasted the day of the race and a little bit the day after. After that I was feeling fine! I do want to do this race again and hope to get into running more. I enjoyed it and had a fun time! I do think if I do it again I will train more and race for a shorter time!