Health knowledge made personal
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Mile 11-13.1 I began to feel my knee. It was not an unusual sensation. My knee gets tight and twinges a bit. I just kept going telling myself that I was almost done. At mile 12 everything changed. I had to come to a full stop. I couldn’t bear any weight on my left leg. It was crushing. I knew that I would PR at that point, and I was so close to my 2012 goal of running a 1:45 half . I walked a bit, stretched and shook out the leg. Gritting my teeth I started back up again and went for another 1/2 mile. I had to stop again.  yup. thats about how I felt. thank you race photog for capturing that moment I have NEVER had this happen to me before. I realize that I am lucky for going race after race without injury or problems … and my heart goes out to all of you who have. I kept thinking about RB and her New York City Marathon experience. I was so upset. I stretched again and shook it out. Finally I started back up, running primarily on my toes with shooting pain in my left knee and a clenched jaw.  and apparently closed eyes ... Mile 13 came after what felt like a decade. I tried to speed it up and bore down for the final bit of the race. I was getting my PR. I had worked so hard for it! Finished. A 1 minute PR.  ouch. ouch. ouch. shaking off the pain ... Official results 
I should be more excited about this. I hit my goals, I got the PR and I had a good amount of fun doing it. I just really wish that my knee didn’t feel like it does. HOWEVER I am taking a glass half full approach. I PR’ed. Alongside a troop of sparkling girlfriends. Mission Accomplished.
Post race I iced, rested, elevated and spent a good amount of time with my pal Trigger Point Foam Roller . I think it helped. Mostly I think that I need to take a week or so off of running. Maybe. I mean at least a few days … the National Half Marathon is justaround the corner!!!
TBD team. Lets see what happens through the week 
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Lets backtrack. In September 4 girls reunited in NYC. These 4 girls first met in 2008 when we began training with Team in Training for the 2009 Nashville Country Music Marathon. Since that time 1 girl moved to Phoenix, 1 to San Fran and 2 of us have stayed in NYC. We all promised that we would rendezvous at various half marathons and make girls trips out of them. The ING Miami Half Marathon was our first one.
I wish that I could say that the race was the focal point and highlight of the trip, but it was NOT … although 2/4 of us had a PR the fun that we had outside of the race far outweighed the time spent running 13.1 miles.
Perhaps thats because we woke up at 2:30 am on Sunday morning to get ourselves to the race start.
2:30 am. Sunday January 29th. Wake up, splash lots of cold water on my face and fumble around for the nearest sparkly skirt. Success
3:30 am. Deliriously choke down toast and peanut butter. Guzzle a coconut water and locate other sparkly people. Check …
4:30 am. Navigate through downtown Miami, passing many party animals who were just ending their night. Finally locate the parking garage and walk to the race start.
5:00 am. Notice that we were the ONLY sparkly people in the 16,000 person crowd and endure lots and lots of random photographs taken with other random runners. I’d like to think that we were good luck charms.
5:45 am Enter our corrals
6:15am. The race begins. Its still dark. I’m still asleep.
Mile 1-6
A complete blur. The first mile was incredibly crowded, but I just moved to the side and took a slower start. I wanted to save my energy.
Somewhere in there the sun came up. My legs felt strong, the race was beautiful and I was a happy runner. I was stopping at every other water stop and moving at a great pace.
photo credit
Miles 6-10
I was trucking along. I took a Honey Stinger and continued to stop at every other water stop. I also put my headphones in and began rocking out to a killer playlist. I was in a groove and feeling really positive about this race. The only hitch so far was that my KT tape had fallen off my knee …
the EVER vivacious Lululemon cheering section!