the jennadventures: suck it up and stop making excuses.

"seriously, shut up. stop coming up with reasons why you won't be able to PR today. at this rate, there is absolutely NO REASON why you can't beat your time from last year. don't be a ~~bitch,~~ you're fully capable of this. just go. run as fast as you can. you don't need to walk after you cross that finish line."

and that is what i told myself around mile 8 when i was calculating in my head how much time i had to finish to beat my best half marathon time of 2:04:57. channeling my inner Anthony Albert and Don Albert and giving myself some tough love. the fear of injuring my groin again, the fear of failing, the fear of letting everyone and myself down. running is SUCH a mental sport. it is tough and draining and you have to kick yourself in the ass sometimes. but guess what? yesterday, my ass kicking worked. i sailed through that finish line at 2:02:23. yes, that means 2 minutes and 34 seconds faster.

WHAT!?!?! i didn't plan on PRing. truly, if you asked me saturday or even sunday morning, i would have told you there's no chance in hell i'd beat my time from last year. i've been injured, i only did ONE long run, i attempted to do that long run last weekend and i failed and ended up having to try again the next day. i was freaking out, to be honest. i've had BAD long runs, but i've never felt like i couldn't finish them. maybe it is because i trained heavy legs twice the week before? probably. so I did the SMART thing, yes, for once, and rested my body, ate clean, hydrated all week, got a massage, foam rolled, and started introducing more clean, healthy carbs four days before my race. well, i guess it worked!! ;)

saturday was a crazy day because not only was old town insanely busy from the rod run, but i was tired, had clients to train and was not packed to leave for SD. by the time i picked up krysta, we were rushed to get down there to pick up my packet before the expo closed. we definitely made it in time and then were able to go check in to our hotel. i felt like i walked a billion miles on saturday. we went to buca di beppo to carb up for my race. it.was.delicious. i was in italian food heaven. after that we stopped at cvs and starbucks to get my race morning breakfast and snacks. when we got back to the hotel we goofed off and i made a running playlist. then we changed the clocks and went to sleep.

i probably woke up four times saturday night panicked thinking that i was going to miss the time change and be late for the race because i had a horrible dream a few nights before about it. well, i didn't wake up late! i got up, got dressed, forced food in my belly and walked down to the starting line. the weather was absolutely perfect!!! i got to meet up with one of our gym members, jen, who was running her first half. fortunately we got to run the first three miles or so together. :) i'm so so so proud of her for completing it! she did awesome and came in well under her goal of 2:30. after those three miles, i realized i had a lot in me. i started pushing my pace to see how far i could go. it was awesome!! i kept pushing and pushing and was comfortably running at about a 9:10 pace. i was seriously shocked. when i started getting to mile 6.5-7 i started really feeling heavy in my hips. that's when i decided to eat my GU and keep pushing. then i started feeling tired, and lazy and knew that ginormous hill was coming up. annnnnd the excuses started pouring into my brain. it was bad. i was being the biggest negative nancy. i turned a corner, took a deep breath, and gave myself the pep talk above. from there, i became a fighter.

i fought through the pain of climbing that mountain. i fought through the temptation of stopping and walking up that stupid thing. i just kept going. i was staring at the ground, ignoring the runners around me, focused on running up that entire hill. i knew once i got to the top, id get to run downhill to the finish. when i got to the top i was struggling to catch my breath but decided to take a few mins to recover and run a little slower than my ideal pace to get to mile 11. i knew when i got to the mile 11 marker, i'd be pushing as hard as possible to get to the finish. and that's exactly what i did. when i was going downhill, i just let my legs fly. i was passing people left and right. when it flattened, i'd push it a little more, but i just kept going. i switched my watch to show "elapsed time" rather than my "current pace" once i got to the mile 12 marker and smiled the biggest smile ever because i knew there was no way i wasn't going to PR. i just kept pushing and push and then... the best song came on to carry me to the end...

i swear, Anthony Albert, you were running with me or something! hahaha... what are the odds of that playing right when i needed it to??

anywho, i crossed the finish and just kept smiling and holding back tears. i did it!!! :) and i haven't stopped smiling since. just another run jenna run adventure i guess. lucky half marathon number 7 and i smashed my record.

thanks for reading, friends!! i'll leave you with a few pics from my weekend (including part of my fabulous post-race celebration - if you're a VBLer please ignore the last three or so photos ;) ). until next time...