Casey at the Blog: Go! St. Louis

Today, Tim and I both ran in the Go! St. Louis Half Marathon! This was Tim's 3rd -- he ran in 1:58:43 which was under his goal time of under 2 hours! He did a great job -- now onto start training for the Chicago Marathon in October! This was my VERY FIRST half marathon and I ran it in 3:00:01 (with a hurt knee)-- not too shabby! Let's back up and I'll tell you how this all got started...

I have NEVER been a runner! Before I got pregnant with Hannah, I started running a little bit at a time. When I started, I couldn't even go for more than about 5 minutes without being exhausted. But slowly and surely, I worked my way up and finished my first 5K (without walking) in May 2008. Then, I got pregnant with Hannah and my running days were over for quite a while. This past fall, one of my co-workers and I started running a couple of days a week after school just for exercise (we both had baby weight to lose) and to work towards a 5K. We did a few 5Ks in the fall and started enjoying our time running. When we got back to school after winter break, we decided we would *try* to train for this half marathon. We figured we would do the best we could -- if we had to walk some of the way, that was totally fine! We looked up a training program and started working the best we could on getting through it. Slowly, we started adding miles to our runs and our confidence started to build. I actually thought to myself that I may make the whole run without walking. Then, the weeknd Tim and I did our 8 mile long run, I started having the worst knee pain ever. Tim said it was my IT band and it should heal after a week or so. I'll be the first to admit that I am not an athlete and probably have a pretty low pain tolerence so I wanted to work through it the best I could. I took it easy that week, but every run, even after a mile, was sending sharp, shooting pains into my knee and down my leg. The week was over and it wasn't getting any better. I was so dissappointed! I was 8 weeks into this thing and pretty much unable to keep up my training the way I had planned. For the next 3 weeks or so, I barely ran at all. I had to tell myself that it was okay to have to walk some of the race because it was either going to be that or not be able to finish. This morning, I got through the first 3 miles with minimal pain. From 3-7 miles I walked a little, but still kept up some running. After that, it was a lot of walking. I was afraid of not finishing so I didn't want to push it too much. I made it to mile 12 and tried to run the last 1.1 miles the best I could. It definitely wasn't the story I was hoping for, but it is my story. One of these days, I may try to do it again. I have really enjoyed running 2-3 miles at a time and after I rest up some more, I would like to keep it up.

Thank you to all my friends and family who have supported me in this from the beginning, and especially since I got hurt. It was so awesome being a part of it today and especially since I got to do it with Tim. He has been so motivating and supportive throughout this whole process! Now it's on to cheer on Timmy has he trains for Chicago!