2013 Asheville Citizen-Times City Half Marathon

I ran my fourth half marathon yesterday morning and it was great! I've been training with a group of women since July, and I was completely prepared for this race--despite having not run much during the week since school started. My long runs on Saturdays with these women have made up the majority of my self-care and social time this fall and it has been a wonderful outlet for me during a very stressful semester. This year, I was lucky to have my sister Chris and my neighbor Michelle join our training group and I loved having them there and getting the opportunity to bond with some other women during our long runs too. I'm thankful for my friend Julie who organized all our weekend training routes and got the group together in the first place, and I was bummed that some nasty shin splints kept her from running with us on race day. I finished 544th overall with a time of 2:05:03 and felt great throughout the entire 13 miles. I am still hoping to run a half marathon in under two hours at some point, but this year was more about enjoying myself as I trained and ran the race. Maybe the fifth time's the charm? We'll see next time!

My mom took this one of us after the race...by the way, Chris finished in 2:55!!!!

Chris and I posing with Michelle and her sister Jenny before the race--at 5:40 in the morning.

Our cute fan club: Harding and Isaac immediately took over our medals and told everyone that they won the race.