Another goal accomplished

Each year I find myself choosing to do something that might not make that much sense. Right now I am talking about a goal related to working out. I choose to do a lot of other things in my life that don't make sense everyday. Yesterday I ran a half marathon. I have never been much of a runner and after the pain I felt in the third leg of the triathlons last year I thought if I could improve that piece maybe I could get better overall. So I decided to work on my running and then decided that why not just signup for a half marathon. So I dragged the L into it, the same fun living girl who agreed to do the triathlons with me last year. The training starting and it wasn't bad. I actually felt pretty good. Then I started to get past 7 miles and it started to hurt a little, I got sick many times after the run, it took time away from my kids and husband, and I was even more exhausted than I was before. I finally was able to not get sick after running over an hour and then I literally got sick and could barely workout, and this was about one month before the race. I made it out for my long runs and I made it to race day. I trained in overcast weather when it was 50. What was it like on race day? It ended up being over 90, overcast and becoming sunny, and about 89% humidity. Not exactly what I was used to. So I started off slow and stayed that way through the whole race. I felt good for about 7-8 miles and then it started to hurt a little bit. Around 11 I really wanted to walk. But I had three goals - #1, to finish, #2, to run the whole thing, and #3, to finish in 2 hours. I made 2 out of 3. I knew by mile 3 that 2 hours wasn't going to happen. I would really need to pick up the pace and with the humidity like it was, the sun coming out, and the fact that this would be not only the longest race I have ever run but the longest I had ever run I decided that finishing without injury and not walking was the bigger prize. I finished in 2:14:34. I was 3343 out of 5232, and I was 611 out of 1068 in my age group. L finished in 2:06:40 and she was 374 out of 1068 which is awesome! So I finished and said to L okay I did that no need to ever do that again! Then we texted today and decided maybe we would and that basically said that we needed psychiatric help. I will see how it goes. That is a year from now and my joints are pretty sore right now. I would really like to finish in the top 50% of my age group which would mean taking off about 30-45 seconds per mile. So until I figure out the next goal I am going to go back to the gym and do some shorted 4-5 mile runs and maybe do some interval training to see if I can go a little faster.

And are you wondering about the flowers? Those are peonies from my garden - another goal I have in life - to have a nice garden. Gardening is not really my thing. Maybe I will start to enjoy it when things in my life settle down a little, though when will that happen? :)