Skip to main content

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

blame it on the warm weather

So on Thursday my friend Holly brought her project for art to ski practise (its a paer mache barbie) and put it by one of the walls because even though seasons just about over we're still decorating the girls side..So yesterday(which was fri) Im 30 min. late for practice (moms) and everyone else is out skiing and i walk into the room and the barbie's moved and scared the sh!t out of me. By the time I get back people are already coming back to the stadium to do sprints so I go do a quick warm up and stuff. I come back and everyone is in spandex and t-shirts. Well the spandex isnt surprising we girls do that all the time but the t shirts wow. I would've taken my jacket off but I ski in  t-shirt so I kept it on.  We splitt in to two teams and start. For those who dontt know what a sprint realy is it's basically a 100-200 yard dash in relay form on skis. It was really fun and one of the times we were in the lead Jirka (j=y) did this weird jumping thing where he just like...
Post a Comment
Read more

UB Saturday

Today there was Upward Bound. We had TRiO day, which means that we visited BSU and took some sessions about college or preparing for college or careers, and partook in a college fair. This is how my day started. I woke up at 7:30  because Jake texted me good morning. The bus leaves the college at 8, I leave two miles away, my mom's at work and I'm still in my clothes from the day before with messy hair and craving a shower. 5 minutes later Jake is at my door. How'd I get ready in less than 5 minutes? I changed shirts, tossed a hoody over it, put my hair in a bun, and brushed my teeth at I found socks and packed  I wound up leaving a bunch of stuff at home, but I had my ipod which is all that really mattered. Bailey was there and so we sat together. She got to meet Colton and he complimented her on being chesty. I told him that I was the only one allowed to compliment her chest and Tim reprimanded him. Kinda. The guest speaker was funny and I liked the way he tie...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tell me I can't

Two years ago I set an impossible goal, and while I didn't make it last year, I made it to state this year. I'm not exaggerating when I say no one thought I would ever come this far, but I set a goal and I worked hard for it. I know that to some, maybe even all, of you it doesn't seem like much. Here I am going on about making it to state and how hard it was and how rewarding it has been, when the Olympics are going on. I'm actually watching the men's slalom as I write this! But to me this is a big deal. This is my fifth year skiing, and it's been a long a road. My coaches love to remind me of how terrible I was when I first started! I mean they really have a good laugh at my expense (not that I care much, it was pretty funny). So to have come this far in what seems to me like a relatively short time, it's amazing. The reason why I'm rambling on about this is because I want to set another goal. Actually a couple of goals. What I learned is that if you...
Post a Comment
Read more