The Bike Diva ran her very first half marathon yesterday morning. Sunday, December 7 marked the 5th annual Marathon of the Palm Beaches. The marathon started at 6 AM from Myer Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Florida.
NOT ENOUGH TRAINING
I didn't do half as much training as I originally planned on doing. I mostly trained on my own, so it was hard to keep motivated. There were many days when I planned on going out for a run but never ended up going, or I went for a bike ride instead. Although I did do one 10 mile run a few months ago, my training runs were either 6 or 8 miles. So I was kind of worried about completing the half, since I had never even attempted running that far before. I only ran one time during the 3 weeks leading up to the marathon, and that was an 8 mile run the Wednesday before the marathon. Talk about being under-trained.
FAMILY VACATION
We went out of town, to visit family in NJ for 5 days right around Thanksgiving. That wasn't a planned trip, but we found really CHEAP plane tickets, so we decided to go visit my husband's 18 family members for an early Thanksgiving. It was WAY too cold for this Floridian to even think about running while we were up there. It was 25 degrees when we got off the plane at the Atlantic City airport and REALLY windy.
I would like to go back and visit my in-laws in the summer time. They live right on the bay in Surf City, New Jersey. They live exactly 9.25 miles from Barnegat Lighthouse on Long Beach Island. That would be a really nice run. My family could drive to the lighthouse ahead of time, look around and play tourist while I was doing my run. Then as soon as I got there they could drive me back to the house. Something to think about for a future trip to Surf City, and the ORIGINAL Ron Jon's Surf Shop is just a short walk from my in-laws house - bonus points!
SPEED DEMON - NOT!
Although I didn't set a land speed record at the Marathon of the Palm Beaches, I did manage to finish the half marathon in a time of 2:34:50. I estimated that it was going to take me around 2 1/2 hours to run the 13.1 miles, and I finished pretty close to my goal. I went online, earlier today, to look at everyone's official race times. The competitor in me looked up my friends times, only a couple of them were faster than me!
So now I want to pick another 1/2 marathon to run, but actually get serious about training for this one, so I can increase my speed. A lot of my running friends have been running for years and years, so I thought my time was pretty good for a biker chick that has just started running in the spring of this year.
The Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon takes place on February 22nd, that's the same day as the Tour de Cure century ride that benefits the American Diabetes Association. My husband and I were planning on doing that bike ride, but if I can get him interested in training for the 1/2 marathon with me, we might end up doing the run instead.
Now I'm just waiting for the official photos of the Marathon of the Palm Beaches to be posted online. If I find any photos of me running the half marathon, I'll post them to the Bike Diva site.
UPDATE:
Here's a link to a
few photos of me running the 2008 Marathon of the Palm Beaches.
Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Bike Diva
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