So it's been a month since I ran the Malibu Half Marathon, and Angela has been on me to write a blog post about it (my first one!) so I finally did it. I had been running just to stay in shape for a while, but had been getting kind of bored ever since I ran the full marathon back in February of this year. With nothing really to train for or look forward to or strive to, the runs on the same old routes were getting tedious.
I signed up for the Malibu Half Marathon and started training. I wasn't exactly starting from scratch so the training was a bit easier this time around, although it had been a while since I had gone as far as 10 and 11 miles for training runs. I missed a few training runs and didn't have as great of times as I would have liked while doing it, so I was a little apprehensive going into the race. That and the fact that I played hockey at 11pm the night before I had to get up at 5:30am to drive to the course didn't make me too optimistic about my time.The course was beautiful! The start was right next to the beach and the whole run was right along the ocean and through the hills of Malibu. This was much more hilly than the other races I had done, but I was able to pace myself pretty good on the uphills, and take advantage of the downhills. In the end, my time was only 30 seconds slower than the half marathon time I ran while training for my full marathon. I finished the Malibu Half Marathon in 2 hours 1 minute. Angela and Jules were also there at the finish line to cheer me on.
My time was much better than I expected, and I hope to do another race next year. Maybe another marathon at some point, although I think I might take a break from running for a bit at the end of this year. I have one more goal for this year - after I run 8 more miles, I'll have run for 500 total miles this year!
