Life with Me, Jackabee: My First 1/2 Marathon

Happy Tuesday Friends! I hope you had a great start to your week!

Today I wanted to share with you a little bit about my first half marathon. First I would like to say thank you so much to all of you who were so supportive as I trained and ran this race. It means the world to me that you were so supportive.

The race weekend started with us runners headed to the race expo for packet pickup. It was so fun to see the other runners and we also had the opportunity to meet the Charity Miles team while we were there.

If you have not heard of Charity Miles they are a group that raises money for charities through members running miles. You can pick from several different charities and raise up to $.25 per miles. They are pretty awesome group and it was amazing to meet them.

Friday evening ended with us relaxing at the house and carb loading - oh and rearly to bed of course.

Saturday morning we woke up at 3:30 am and made our way to the starting line. I was a bit shocked at how far we had to actually walk to get to our corral - I'm thinking it was about 1/4-1/2 miles away from the parking lot. We were in corral L, so we didn't actually start until 6:11am.

One of the coolest part of the Disney Races is the text updates. Anyone can sign up to follow your progress as you go through your race. It actually helped me to track my progress as I was able to track my timing.

The race started out great with a ton of adrenaline pumping through me. We even made sure to stop at each mile maker to grab some sort of picture.

Around mile 6, my feet and legs started to get sore, but nothing too serious. Plus, it was around this time that we ran through the castle and saw Anna and Elsa.

Around mile 9, my calves started to sieze up really badly making it almost impossible for me to run, let alone walk. At around mile 10, I started to severely doubt whether or not I was going to be able to finish.

Thankfully it was around this time the dreaded balloon ladies showed up. If you know anything about Disney races, you have to finish the race in a specific amount is time. Queue the balloon ladies. These women are the be all and end all of the race timing. If they pass you and you cannot see them, you will be picked up.

Once the balloon ladies came into sight, I had a fire lit under my behind to pick up my pace and stay ahead of those balloons. By the end of the race, I was ready to cross that finish line and take my shoes off.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised that my main focus was on getting my shoes off ASAP. Aside from pain on my feet and calves, I had a great time running and I am looking forward to running my next half marathon in October!