{"id":784522,"date":"2011-10-08T03:07:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-08T03:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/?p=784522"},"modified":"2012-08-09T04:32:44","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T04:32:44","slug":"urban-cow-half-marathon-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/2011\/10\/08\/urban-cow-half-marathon-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Cow Half Marathon 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

I DID IT! \u00a0I can’t believe I am saying this, but I just ran 13.1 miles!<\/p>\n

It all started when a friend of mine was looking for women to sign up on her team to be placed in the lottery for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco. \u00a0This is such a popular race that you have to be accepted by lottery. \u00a0If a single person on a team is chosen, the whole team gets picked.<\/p>\n

I agreed to have her put my name on the list even though at the time I was not running more than three miles per run. \u00a0I also encouraged some friends to put their name in as well.<\/p>\n

Well, we waited for months and then learned that none of us were chosen for the race. \u00a0But, instead of us breathing a collective sigh of relief and staying with our little 3-milers, we all decided to commit to training for a different half marathon. \u00a0We chose the Urban Cow Half Marathon in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

We continued to run 3 miles, about four days a week, then started a Half Marathon training schedule that was posted in the Runner’s World magazine. \u00a0It was a 9 or 11 week program (I don’t recall which one). \u00a0Five friends came on board for the training, and we all stuck to the program.<\/p>\n

The evening before the race, we all met in Sacramento and went to dinner at Paesano’s<\/a>, a terrific Italian eatery. \u00a0After a delightful dinner, we had booked two rooms at the Sacramento Sheraton<\/a>. \u00a0We all went down early, had a poor night sleep, but were up and ready to leave by 6:15am.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful morning. \u00a0Perfect weather-wise. \u00a0The route was gorgeous; through a fabulous neighborhood, two parks, Old Sacramento, and along the river. \u00a0Crystal stayed with me the whole time. \u00a0Tina and Elyse finished before us, Shanti and Carrie after us (both were nursing injuries). \u00a0We also had the added bonus of seeing two friends run across the finish line that are in our Bible study..Heather and Betsy!<\/p>\n

I ran well and strong for the first 10 miles. \u00a0The last three were brutal. \u00a0But, we did it. \u00a0My final time was 2:49:53, but it included about a 7-10 minute bathroom break at mile 5…. (not that it really matters…)<\/p>\n

The view from our 15th floor room…
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Crystal and I running strong at mile 8….MOO!
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Crossing the finish line!
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The group shot! Elyse, me, Crystal, Shanti, Tina, Carrie
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a quick swim in the Sheraton pool, some of us went out for a celebratory lunch at Paul Martins<\/a> in Roseville.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yum! Salmon, with tomatoes!
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I DID IT! \u00a0I can’t believe I am saying this, but I just ran 13.1 miles! It all started when a friend of mine was looking for women to sign up on her team to be placed in the lottery for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco. \u00a0This is such a popular race […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-get-active"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784522"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":786534,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784522\/revisions\/786534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.centerdeep2.com\/riverbendprep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}