the Dalaverse

You guys.

I ran a half-marathon today.

13.1 miles.

So that whole thing where I was going to start posting again and then didn't, there has been a lot going on. But today I just want to talk about this. Apologies if this is disjointed, I've been awake since...4:30 this morning.

I started training in December with a program run by a local running store. It meets - er, met (still haven't accepted that it's over) for weekly long runs on Sundays and track workouts on Wednesdays. I was fortunate to find somebody running at my quite-slow pace, so I had a running buddy and a new friend (who is fannish! She's read every Pride and Prejudice fic out there). At first I didn't know which race I wanted to sign up for, but the program was geared toward the Rock 'n' Roll marathon in DC, Rachel was doing it, and there was a discount one day so I figured what the hell.

Today I ran it with Rachel and her friend Katye. We wanted to finish under 3 hours and hit 2:59:22, which is a victory. We actually started out quite a bit faster than I'd been doing on long runs, but around 5.5 hit this massive hill from Rock Creek Park up to Adams Morgan. Seriously, it makes the elevation map look like an EKG, it's so dramatic. So that broke our stride a little, and we walked up some of the hillier bits of the course after that. It went from the Monument around Rock Creek, through Adams Morgan and Dupont, around near Howard University, and finished at RFK. It was a pretty good course aside from that evil fucking hill, and a TON of people were out on the streets to cheer for their friends and family or just hanging out in some of their neighborhoods to encourage us. That part was fully awesome. And! It was supposed to start raining by 9 this morning, but passed us by. I actually would've liked it a few degrees colder (it was about 50 when we finished), but otherwise, perfect running weather.

I'm just so, so proud and excited to have done this. I trained really hard and have come to appreciate my body in a way I never have, because it got me through. There was a time around the 8 mile mark when my right ankle started throbbing pretty bad, but I stretched it and shook it out and it recovered.

Of course I'm in quite a lot of pain right now and it'll probably be worse in the morning, but hey. My legs and my lungs and my back, we ran thirteen point one miles today. A year ago, I was running two, maaaybe three miles. That is just...WOW.

Fuck that hill, though. That hill is the devil and it stole a bit of my soul. But I have a medal and a sticker on my car, so.