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Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon

This winter my mom signed me up for the Grandma's Half (otherwise known as the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon) for some unknown reason. I planned on training like a beast and impressing all these people with my running skills and everyone would know my name. Well that's not how it happened.

My coach didn't want me doing all that extra running, and I just went with it.I became caught up in training for track that I just forgot to train for the race. Even better, I'm a sprinter in track. We don't do distance. Like ever. The closest thing to running distance we do is from the track to the school. The week after track ended Upward Bound began, and because we were at LEC I was unable to run that week. 

Guess how much training I wound up doing. Go on, guess. Guess yet? Well I'll tell ya anyways: two weeks. The farthest I ran? 5 miles.That was my half marathon training, and just in case you don't know how far that is, it's 13.1 miles. Lol, I'm terrible. Anyways, let's get to the race.

My mom and I drove down to Duluth the night before for registration in the impenetrable fog. I mean it was just terrible. Then we wound up lost and circling the arena place where we thought it was at. We stopped for directions and it turns out we were exactly where we were suppose to be!  Then we wound up circling the place again trying to find a parking spot and freaking out because we thought we were going to miss registration. Eventually we found a spot, got me registered, and mom even decided to splurge and bought me these pretty cool running shorts!! They're orange and black too, so I can show off my school pride. 

We stayed in a pretty swanky hotel room that we shared with some of mom's friends who were running the race too. I went to bed asap, though it took me awhile to fall asleep. In the morning I ate what I normally eat (which was hard considering it was a continental breakfast and I LOVE them).  Then came the waiting. What for? Mom's friends. I don't know what took them so long, but it felt like an eternity and I was freaking out. We were about to miss the bus to start, and it turns out we did. Thankfully the drivers were cool and let us hop on  the full marathon bus since they'd be going by the start of the half. Showed up 20 minutes before the start. Warming up consisted of running to one of the trucks to drop off our bags so they'd be dropped off at the finish. Then worked my way though the crowd (which was just huge! I still can't believe there were that many people there!!), stopping every now and then to do sit-ups and random stretches.

The gun went off. The crowd surged forward, and I nearly died. My heart was beating that hard. Then it began. The surge moved to where I was and even though my mind froze, my body knew what to do. I'll spare you the details of running 13.1 miles in the cold (which didn't register until after, actually ran in a sports bra), with little visibility (due to weather and my glasses), whilst listening to my music and making friends.

My favorite part of the entire thing was the crowds. They were amazing!! People had signs, motivational signs, funny signs, inspirational signs, ect. There were two terrible yet funny ones; "Run faster. I farted." and "Smile if you peed yourself a little". That last one nearly killed me. If smiling means you peed a little what would laughing entail? Have you ever run whilst trying not to laugh? It's painful. The guy saw me trying to not laughing or smile (I was smiling, couldn't help it) and he pointed at me and nodded his head as if to say "I know what you did".

With about 5 miles to go I was feeling good, passing people left and right, and enjoying the race. I was having a grand ol' time (which was the point of the whole thing) until that moment. It was never about competition until I met this guy. I don't know who he was, and I probably never will, but at that moment I couldn't care less. I passed him, thought nothing of it until he passed me. Still didn't think anything of it, just that I should try to keep with him. Use him to pace myself. Well he turned it into a competition, and you know me, I love a good competition. Every time I got close he'd pull ahead again. Those last five miles felt amazing. It's always great when you find that you can push yourself just a bit further. Just in case you were wondering, I did pass him in the end. It took a lot, but I put all that I could into that last mile and even more into that homecoming stretch. Though to anyone watching it probably didn't look like it haha.

Sadly I missed the finishers party because my mom wanted to go home. She had some plans with her friends or something. Actually first we went to buy my younger brother some clothes. Which really angered me. I mean, I just ran my first half marathon not even a half hour ago, am missing out on a sweet after party/free food/meeting awesome people/food, I can't walk right and we're clothes shopping for my younger brother.I then spent the next two hours sitting SITTING in the car. You do not sit after racing or running or whatever, not unless you want your legs to cramp. Grrr!! Not a happy camper. Thank goodness I had Upward Bound Monday, talking to Mr. Hermel about the race helped me forget. He kept trying to get me to show off my medal and how I did. Felt too much like bragging or whatever. I couldn't do it. I can brag to you guys though, here's some pictures.
Me after the race with my new shirt and medal.
See outside the window? It was worse the day before
Photo courtesy of mom

My medal :)

Picture-Mom

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