PHOENIX HALF MARATHON!

In the middle of January, Stephanie talked me into signing up to run the Phoenix Half Marathon with her March 2nd. Well, life happens and she ended up needing knee surgery and since we already paid and signed up, Denise took her place. This race training was like no other, oh ya, because we didn't train for it, well we sorta did. We normally train multiple times a week with several different mileages to cover each day, this time well, one week I ran 4, then we ran an 8, a 10, 12 and then the week of the race I ran 3 miles. That's it. I trained 5 days for it. We did not go into this race looking to get a PR or anything, we just wanted to run the whole thing and finish....not huge goals by any means.

I have to say minus having to get up at 3:30am, this race was my favorite so far! LOVED the course, loved the goodie bag, loved the National Anthem played at the beginning followed by fireworks, loved the heater lamps that we stood by for an hour and a half before our race started, HATED that we had to take a bus to the start line so we had to leave our house at 4am to make it there by 4:30am to catch the bus to make it to the start line by 6:30am, loved all the porta-potties on the side of the race, loved the crowds every where cheering us on, loved the cops who would yell at the idiot drivers thinking the cops would pause the race so they could turn, loved the wet wash clothes we got at the end of the race, loved everything! 

When the start gun shot off and Denise and I started, we just took the race nice and easy. We were in no rush. We ran, talked, made fun of people, it was lovely! I did enjoy it I must admit. this was probably the most fun I have had running a race because I wasn't trying to beat my time! I am now looking forward to my next race. 

4:30am - getting ready to board the buses! 

About halfway through the race they had photographers snapping pictures, they loved that Denise and I were messing with them - clearly we had more energy then we were putting out :) 

Crossing the finish line...

We did it - as we like to call this race, "2013 re-do" - 2013 has not started out the best for either of us, so this was our re-do to our year to turn it around! 

the ride home

As soon as the race was over we headed straight home because we both had kids in soccer games that we did not want to miss. Here is the Jensens in all our glory that day!