Raleigh Half Marathon

I ran a half marathon today for the first time! I'm so excited to have completed it and accomplished a goal I had but wow, am I exhausted. I've been training for 3 months but of course, a more modified training schedule given that we have Natalie now. Luckily, Emile cooks dinner so I was able to get a few runs in during the week while Emile cooked and hung out with Natalie -- otherwise, there's no way I could have worked, spent time with Natalie and went for a run. Although I didn't get all my weekday runs in, I did do all my long distance runs on Sunday. And it was super helpful for losing my pregnancy weight -- I've lost all but the pesky last 5 lbs!

I wasn't sure if I should do the run today given that Natalie won't take a bottle and so I was worried she's be hungry while I was running and cry the whole time. But we worked out a good plan where Emile would give her cereal and spoon feed her breast milk if she couldn't hold out (my mom discovered recently she'll drink breast milk from a spoon). Turns out Natalie did wonderful! She took a 45 minute nap in the stroller and after that was thrilled as punch to be in the Bjorn looking around at all the people in the crowd. She didn't even want cereal or milk -- and didn't cry while I was gone to eat. All afternoon though she's been definitely making up for it! I'm relieved that I did the run and everything worked out for Emile and Natalie while I was gone.

I can't believe I ran 13.1 miles today! It took me 2 hours 26 minutes and 25 seconds. My average pace was 11:11 min/mile -- a little slower than I had wanted (I was hoping for 10 min/miles). The first half of the race I was running closer to 10 min/mile but not surprisingly, I ran slower towards the end. I finished 1,944 out of 2,484 people. Here is a photo of me starting the race full of energy:

And here I am about the cross the finish line -- I can barely lift my feet anymore :)

My parents came down to see me finish the race before driving back to Wisconsin.
Yesterday, we went with my parents to the Farmers Market in Raleigh and then spent some time lounging around outside -- it was a beautiful day!