Zooma Half Marathon Recap

A friend of mine has a group of friends she calls her "wise men". Whenever she's working on a problem or seeking advice, she turns to her wise men for direction. In my case, I recently realized I have my own set of wise men that support and guide me through my fitness goals and aspirations - my dad and my husband. I mention them in this post because without them, I wouldn't have had the most AWESOME experience ever at the Zooma Atlanta half marathon on Sunday.

Going into Sunday's race, my training had been kind of a mess - not quite like last time, no mental breakdowns - but I took a couple of weeks off from training and had a really hard time focusing. I lost my mother to a long battle with ALS and working through those emotions and spending time with my family had my state of mind on a roller coaster. Because of those challenges, I approached the remainder of my training without really caring about how it felt as long as I got it done. I figured I'd run on Sunday if I felt like it and if I didn't, I'd skip it.

By the time I started tapering, I felt good about the race and was actually looking forward to it. The morning of the race I was giddy with excitement. The weather was supposed to be perfectly cool and clear, the course was gorgeous and I felt ready to tackle the distance. I was ready to try out my new race plan of strategically incorporating more walking into the race (thanks for that idea, dad!), I had a brand new playlist loaded up on my iPod and I had my number one fan and coach with me reminding me to just enjoy the ride (thanks, babe!).

The race was completely exhilarating. The setting was so beautiful and the weather so perfect, I hardly cared that I was running through it all. I felt like I kept a comfortable and fun pace through about 9 miles (and slowed down after that) and I smiled a lot more than I ever had during a race like this. When I sprinted through the finish, I felt great. It was like a new accomplishment even though I've done five of these already and the reason is because this time around, I'd finally let go of my finish time. I gave myself permission to run as slow or fast as I wanted. I wasn't out to beat a past time and I was comfortable with running a new slower time. I stopped comparing myself to everyone that ran and other people I know who are faster than I am. That new mental approach made all of the difference.

During this race I never asked myself why I was running - I was having too good a time to feel bad! I finished this race without agonizing over all of the walking I did or beating myself up about not running faster or running more so my time would be better. I finished this race and immediately began thinking about when I could run another.

Letting go of all of my expectations felt wonderful and freeing. I owe my ability to do that this time around to all of the coaching my wise men have helped me with in the past few years. Thank you both for supporting me so much and keeping me moving forward at my own pace.