O.M.G.

Well I did it!!! I did a half marathon!!! And we raised more then enough money to buy the Defibrillator for the local sporting clubs.

It was an amazing day which started early for those of us whole ran the 21.1km. 11 of us were crazy enough to attempt the 21.1km. I didn't get off to the greatest of starts I was too busy talking and didn't work my music out properly. So I had to stop and get that sorted. We had some very serious runners who took off straight away. I was at the back of the pack (quite happily) for the first 4km. Until my good friend Mrs Pete ran with me for the next 6km. We couldn't  didn't talk to each other but it was comforting having someone there.

We reached the 10km mark in just under an hour. The walkers who were doing 11km left about 5 minutes before we got there. So from now on there were people around for most of the run. My brother ran with me for a little bit which was great and his support the whole day was awesome.   From 12 - 14km there is a BIG mountain  hill to climb. At the top of that hill I stopped for a drink. Silly silly idea.

My knee which has never bothered me before started to hurt. To the point where I could barely walk let alone run. There were tears...swearing....more tears....more swearing....I honestly thought that was it and I wouldn't be able to finish. I was devastated. Then hubby came past in the support vehicle offering water & powerade. He also had my brother with him and they didn't really say much but it was enough to get me going again.

I ran until about the 17km mark. Then I ran and walked on and off. I was catching up to walkers and in the end I was quite happy to walk amongst my friends for a bit. With about a kilometre to go I joined one of my good friends who had walked 5km. We had a good chat and then when we could see the finish line we started running.

It was the GREATEST feeling. After 2hrs 33min I had done something I never thought possible. As we were running into the oval we said that we were both tearing up. Then I said to her none of my family are here.(Mark, my brother & sister were all in support vehicles, the kids were running 2.5km, my brother in law who had already finished was back with the kids.) She said "But we're your family". That made me cry even more. It was the most amazing feeling to cross that finish line with people cheering and I know I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes.

I have to say there a 2 ladies who ran their first (and probably last) half marathons on Saturday. One of them started running this year and a month or so ago told me she would do the 11km but didn't think she could do the half. I told her if I could do it anyone could do it. She SMASHED it and finish in 2hrs!!! And the other lady is a very fit hockey player who had been sick with the flu all week. She was planning to run with her sister as part of a team. That was until I spoke to her on Friday and said why not give it a crack and see how far you can get. Well not sure what her time was but she was way ahead of me. I am so proud of both these ladies! I am sure that with the sore muscles I am not their favourite person at the moment.

Our local community really got behind the event. We were blown away by the turn out. I had 2 wonderful ladies both named Vikki who really did all the hard work. They collected names and money, made sure everyone was where they were supposed to be and just made the whole thing run smoothly so I could concentrate on running. It could not have happened without them. Like I keep saying I just came up with the idea they helped make it happen.

The vibe of the day was just electric! I kept hearing next time we'll do this, Next year lets try this, I'll do a longer run next year. All this and I still hadn't had a shower to wipe off the sweat from this year. Hopefully this will become an annual event if for nothing else then it brought the community together and saw people achieve something they didn't think they could.

Bring on a well earnt holiday with lots of quality family time.