Adventure #24 - Part One the half Marathon April 30, 2011

Well the encouragement to do a half marathon came in January from Joanne, who sent me an e-mail about the Illinois half marathon.  I put it out of my mind as I was training for Hustle Up the Hancock and was trying to beat a sinus infection.  After completing Hustle Up the Hancock, the race was revisited so on March 5, 2011 I signed up and began the whirlwind training for a half marathon as I had never run more than 4 miles at that point.
So with weekly work-outs on the treadmill focused on running, I slowly added miles and time until I was able to run for 90 minutes on the treadmill which roughly translated for me to 8.5 miles.  So the week before the half marathon, APril 16th Ben agreed to run the Rock Island Trail with me for my long run of 10 miles.  Ben was very gracious as my run for him was a slow jog.  Ben talked to me for the entire run to keep me going and at about 10.5 miles I wasa done.  The thought that crossed my mind was "and I have 3 more miles to run - you have got to be kidding me!" 
Easter Sunday I woke up feeling really funny and by Monday I had a full blown sinus infection.  I was able to see my MD on Thursday after work and told him that I had a half marathon to run on Saturday.  Dr. Miller's response was "So I have 2 days to get you better - this should be interesting."
Joanne, Amanda and I travelled to Champaign on Friday after work, had dinner on the road, picked up our packets and went to stay with the Crusade staff in Champaign as they had graciously opened their home to us.

Aftere coughing all night as I had been doing for 3 weeks,  Saturday arrived and I felt terrible.  So I was resigned to just finishing, even if it would mean walking.  the race provided free pacers so I decided to join the 11:26 pacer and just see what would happen as I figured that I would not be able to run my 11:00 pace.  So the race started.  When we reached the 90 minute mark, my pacer, Beth, told us that we only had an hour left and I thought I am feeling good apart from using a kleenex every mile but another hour seems impossible so I turned on my i-pod to listen to music.  As we approached mile 9, Beth told me that the plan was to speed up for the final 5K and I said "you have got to be kidding me - there is no way that I can do this."  She told me that I could and to try but I was not planning on it.  At mile 10 however, she slowed down a bit and so I went ahead and slowly began to speed up so that my last 5K was faster than my first one.  As I approached the 13 mile mark, I was teary just with the realization that I was going to complete the half marathon.  It was an overwhelming thought since in April of 2007, I had my worst month  of chemotherapy treatments because at the beginning of April, one of my treatments burned my blood vessels, I had phlebitis, and never had a good week.  My parents would check on me at night to be sure that I was breathing and doing OK.  God has been gracious to me over these 4 years so that despite the loss of 30% of my lung diffusion due to chemotherapy, I am still able to be active and able to enjoy living life and trying new things - like a half marathon.  Even if I could not do these things - God is still good. 
So at 2:28:54 I crossed the finish line under the 2:30 mark and well under my planned 3 hour goal. 

So now begins the full paced training for the full marathon in Dublin in October.  Exactly 6 months away.