Houston Half-Marathon

Forrest and I along with Amberly, Aaron, and Tony did the big Houston half-marathon on Sunday, January 30th.  Several months ago we registered for this race and boy did I not know what I was getting into! At first I was excited because we were chosen through a lottery selection process. That sounds fun right? Lottery selection, getting chosen and all….. I know I sure felt special. But then I realized, wait…now I have to really do this and I can barely run 4 miles at this point! A little panic began to set in, but luckily I had Amberly right there by my side feeling the same way. A little misery loves company I guess you could say!
So months went by and I attempted a training schedule. I am not going to lie…it was really hard once I got into the end of nursing school with graduation and all, oh and not to mention the holidays, my gosh what a terrible time to be thinking about RUNNING. So, I fell a little behind. Forrest, Mr. Dedicated, and worried about my commitment, got onto me a few times. He eventually caused me enough guilt to make me run a few times in the blistering cold. I was able to work up to a 9 mile run. It wasn’t too bad I guess. I felt good afterwards, and it gave me enough confidence that I would not die in a couple weeks.
The weekend of the race was all about having fun. We checked into our hotel on Saturday, the day before. We stayed at the Four Seasons in dowtown Houston right outside the race start, and finish line. The minute we checked in, my little “vacation mode” went off and although we would be cautious as to how we spent out time that night, I knew we were going to be making the most of our night away from home. Forrest treated me to a very fancy Italian buffet at the restaurant, Quatro, which was loaded with carbs. I thought it was wonderful but Forrest is never really impressed with noodles. We had a good time though.
The next morning, we woke up early and Amberly and Aaron called to say they were going to meet us at our hotel room before the race. The weather was yucky, chilly and rainy, so we didn’t rush to the start line. Luckily once we got down there, it was not bad at all. We got caught under a few rain clouds during the race but overall it was tolerable…although my hair would not agree.
I ran the entire thing with Amberly. I don’t know about everyone else but we absolutely had the times of our lives! We high fived at every mile marker and just kept positive throughout the whole course. We initially planned to run the first 10 miles and allowed ourselves the privilege of walking the rest, but soon after we started (and before we started hurting), we decided we were going to run every mile to the finish line. And we did, we never walked once. And boy, did it feel good to cross the finish line.
Forrest did amazing. He flew through that race. He did it in 1 hour and 50 minutes, placing him in the top 8% of all the finishers. WOW.  I am still blown away at how great he did. I am so proud of him!