I am a Runner-Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon

I am a runner! I am a runner! I AM a runner!

I can hear all of my girlfriends, family and friends telling me I have always been a runner. But for the first time, I FEEL like a runner.

As most of you know, it has been a long road to get here. The Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon made me feel like the runner I always wanted to be.

For the first time, I finished a half marathon completely injury-free. Yes, I had aches and pains while I was running and now I have some soreness. But I didn’t hurt, stressed, or fractured anything in my body.

The Portland Half weekend started with good laughs with a group of ladies who met along the way through our love of running. Regardless how long we have known each other, our goal always is to support each other and have fun. I can’t imagine a better group of ladies I would have liked to share this accomplishment with than them.

If you have never been a part of a Rock ‘n’ Roll event, it is an awesome race to do for your first or 100th half. At this Portland Half, 11017 runners finished this race.

For me, the beginning of this race was very emotional. I felt ready to do this, both emotionally and physically. I had an enormous amount of support from everyone, especially my coaches and my friends. My emotions were in check until our National Anthem was played. It always gets to me. This time even more so. The hush that came over the crowd was overwhelming as we waited for the first notes of our anthem to fill the air. I know I wasn’t the only one wiping tears away on my sleeves.

The first corral took off at the sound of the gun with the elite runners. Then as the waves of corrals went off two minutes apart, the emotions turned to nervousness as anticipation swept through each corral as we slowly moved towards the start line. Friends were telling friends to have a good run, re-checking post-runs meeting places, smiling and high fiving each other as well as taking last minute pictures.

My nervousness passed once I crossed the start line. Now it was all about relaxing, remembering what my running coach told me, and having fun. The bands, support staff, and traffic police were all great, even the medical staff were great. No, I had no need of them except to have one direct me to their garbage can to throw away my finish gel trash.

I did stick to my running plan of running 9 minutes and walking 1 minute until the hills got to me. Then I switched to running until I got tired, then walking for a minute or two before it was back to running.

By the time, I got to mile 11, I knew I was going to make it but keeping my emotions in check was hard to do. It got harder as I neared the finish line. It didn’t seem to matter how tired I was, and I was, my feet hurt, my IT Band was starting to tighten up, my knees were starting to ache, I had a burst of energy especially when I saw the actual finish line and heard random people cheering.

I crossed the finish with a personal best of: