OKC Half Marathon Recap with My New Running Buddy

I was so excited to run the Oklahoma City Memorial half marathon with my new little running buddy!

One of my favorite things about races is the energy at the race expo! My parents and the hubs came with me to pick up my race packet and participant shirt.

The expo was a little disappointing. It wasn't very well organized. But perhaps most frustrating was that no one could tell me about the elevation of the course. I searched on the official race site, on their Facebook page, on Google, asked on their Facebook wall and tweeted to them and couldn't find any information on the elevation whatsoever. The pacer also wasn't very helpful either because he didn't really know an answer either. So I was completely unprepared for the course that lied ahead.

Nevertheless, I was stoked to run a race with my baby and that my family was able to come and support me!

Downtown OKC was beautiful!

We walked around for a while the night before the race to find a good place to carb load. But it was prom night so all of the Italian restaurants had at least a 2 hour wait (another reason why this race was a little frustrating).

On race morning I woke up at 4:15 to eat my first bagel and get ready for the race. The families and I walked to the starting area. We walked through the OKC Memorial which was so serene and beautiful!

After a quick trip to the port-a-potties and a 168 second pause to remember those that were lost in the OKC bombing, I lined up in my corral!

The race started exactly at 6:30! My favorite part of the race was the tradition of local firefighters walking the course.

from the Official OKCM's Facebook page

My legs felt heavy about a mile into the race, right in time for the first major hill of the course. Cut to 8 miles later {and several thoughts of "I'm never running a half marathon again" and "Why do I think running is fun?!}, I had already walked a few times because my body felt so lousy. I just never felt in rhythm. There were a few times where I felt like I couldn't get enough oxygen and got lightheaded {which scared me considering I'm providing oxygen for my new running buddy!}, so I swallowed my pride and walked for a few seconds as needed.

I was so relieved to see my family around mile 9! 

I was so tempted to ask someone to either finish running with me or to walk with me the rest of the way, but I decided to tough it out and finish on my own, continuing to walk as needed.

I thought I was delusional when I finally saw the finish line! I was hoping it was my finish line {as if there would be another finish line in the area??? I told you I was delusional}. I decided to go for it was hard as I could and finish strong. 

I'm thankful that I did because I broke my PR by a few seconds! I'm not sure how I did it considering it was a tough race + walking, but I did it!

My takeaways from this race:

 - 6:30 is a really early starting time

 - an elevation chart would be really helpful

 - eating dinner at 9:00pm and waking up at 4:30am isn't the best idea 
 - running a half marathon while pregnant is much harder than running without a kid in your abdomen
 - walking during a race is OKAY! It doesn't make you any less of a runner!
 - no matter how many times you swear you'll never run a race again, you'll be looking for another race within a week

Overall I'm really thankful for this race because the weather was perfect {and in Oklahoma, there's only about 5 days of perfect weather a year} and it provided a nice weekend getaway with my family filled with lots of laughs and good conversations.

While I did struggle during this race, I'm sad this will probably be my only half marathon {at least officially} during this pregnancy. I might be crazy, but I'm still looking for a fun and entertaining race that I can do before I get too big!