Well, ladies and gentlemen, I survived my first half marathon today! Unfortunately, it was a pretty painful run for me, but I will be saving these details for tomorrow’s post. All that matters though is that I finished!

Recap from yesterday

I did my best to get a good mix of carbohydrates and protein in my diet yesterday. Friday I stocked up on the carbs as well (that was when I wasn’t feeling well and only bread and fruit tasted good to me). I was building my glycogen stores!

Anyway, I began my day with my standard as of lately: Cream of Wheat sweetened with stevia, a touch of brown sugar, and cinnamon.

After breakfast, we walked a few blocks down the road to cheer on a friend of ours who was running a 5k race in our neighborhood. It was a gorgeous morning and it felt good to stretch the legs on our walk to the race.

We spent a couple of hours out there, cheering (she did awesome btw), supporting, and chatting before heading home.

I was starving by the time we got home so I snacked on a banana some peanut butter.

I made sure to drink A LOT of water throughout the day to hydrate myself well for race day.

We relaxed for a while, gathered some items from Dana’s parents for our upcoming garage sale, and eventually ate lunch. I heated up the last of the grilled chicken breast, sauced it with Kraft’s Asian Dressing. On the side, I had green beans.

In the afternoon, Kevin, Dana, and I headed out to pick up our race bibs, race chips, shirts, etc.

I was EXCITED! Team Ortho did a wonderful job with the production of this Minneapolis Marathon. We have run one other race with them when we ran the Get Lucky 7k in March (which was great too). Everything from registration, to race-info pickup, to the actual day of the half marathon, was very well organized and the volunteers were great too!  I would recommend their races to anyone.

When we got home from picking up our stuff, we fired up the grill. I wanted to make sure we get dinner in at a decent hour so that we had plenty of time to digest it, and sleep it off, so that we wouldn’t feel icky in the morning. I planned a protein and carbohydrate packed dinner. I gotta take care of my boys. On the menu: Super lean turkey burgers and sweet potato fries on the grill, and ketchup obviously.

The rest of the night was spent preparing for the run. I laid out my running gear, pinned my number on, placed my race chip on my shoelaces, packed our bag, charged the iPod, iced, stretched, and did anything else I could think of to make the next morning go as smooth and painless as possible for us. I’m a planner.

We got a good chuckle from the doggie when Dana put a backpack on his back. Moose is all ready for school. He’s always such a good sport, not to mention the cutest thing ever. I wish I knew what he was thinking at that moment. Probably something like, “Really guys? Again? I’m the brunt of your joke…again? You’re going to have to start paying me for this kind of entertainment.” Love you Moosey.

We got to bed around 9:30-10ish, and slept pretty well surprisingly. Excited to fill you in on the race details. Stay tuned!