You have to get up really, really early. 

You feel kind of crummy from getting up early and from pre-race nerves. 

You worry about having to use the bathroom during the race. For real!

You don’t feel like eating anything. 

You wonder if you’re really going to make it to the finish. (Did I mention pre-race jitters?!)

You drive and wait in lines to park…or you ride the extremely packed Dart Rail train.   

You get to the race, find your corral and anxiously/excitedly await the start …and take pre-race selfies.    

The race starts and you inch your way forward until it’s your packs’ time to start. 

You run some. You walk some. (If you’re really good, you just run.  I don’t know about that!)

If you see cool stuff along the way, you pull out your phone and take pictures.    

You meet awesome people on the course!  Today I met a nurse from Denton that I talked with from miles 2-7. One lady noticed that I dropped money when I took my camera out of my case and ran up to give it to me. I talked with a ton of different groups of people along the way!

A little over half-way through the race, your legs start hurting and you really wonder how you’re going to make it to the end. But you keep pushing forward mile by mile. 

When you get to the end, even if you’ve been walking, you step up the pace or start running to have a good finish. (Unless you’re like me in my last half where I felt so horrible I didn’t care one lick about the finish and just walked it in!)

You cross the finish line, get your medal and an armload of water, Gatorade and food. 

And though you’re hurting and tired, you are proud of what you just accomplished!  You did it!!!

I loved today’s race!  I hadn’t really trained, so I was a little worried. The weather was absolutely perfect – cool and no rain. I took it easy from the beginning, and I felt better than I ever have in a race. I could have gone faster, but I thoroughly enjoyed talking to a lady along the way!  The course was awesome!  My time wasn’t great, but I beat my last half’s time and I had actually trained some for that one. Shocking!

I’m already looking forward to the next one!