Jaontra's Half Marathon Recap

Finally the day had arrived. It was Sunday, March 24, 2013. The big day was here at last and the nerves had definitely kicked in. Even though I had made it to every training run and even did some runs on my own, I was still feeling butterflies in the pit of my stomach. Even though the night before, we had carb-loaded on a nice pasta dinner, I was feeling as though I was not going to perform well. However, I knew it was time to prepare myself for my big race. I grabbed my running tights, my RBO shirt, and the other clothes I needed to get ready. Once I was dressed I put my shoes on and went out to get breakfast. When I was done with breakfast I knew it was time to go. I grabbed my bib, water bottle, water bottle holder, and my Clif Shot Blocks. I got in the car and tried to settle all the nerves that had set in, but it was not working.

I arrived at Snow Park and saw all the people gathered there and grew even more nervous. However, I went to check in at the RBO tent and put my bib on anyway in an attempt to keep myself busy. Shortly after this, I found Chelsea, my RBO volunteer, and realized it was almost time for the race to start. I did a few simple stretches to loosen up my muscles and began walking toward the starting line. Yet I did not realize until that moment just how many people were actually doing this and when I did my nerves seemed to subside. I realized that I put a lot of effort into this and all I had to do was run. 

 

Suddenly a noise went off, confetti blew in the air, and the huge mass of people began to move forward and I did too. However, it started off in a slow walk and then turned into a jog and eventually into a run. Finally, we were off! 

 

It seemed really interesting to be running in the middle of the street, but to my surprise it was a lot more fun than any other route I had been on. It was nice to get to look up and gaze at the buildings. It really gave me a chance to appreciate the beauty that Oakland possesses. We followed the huge mass of people and found little things to talk about. When we reached the mile one marker, we all exclaimed that we only had 12.1 more miles to go. I still felt like I could go on for days. I kept running and running and then we go to a certain point when we realized we were going to run into the tunnel. This was one of my favorite parts because it felt like I was a car. 

 

We kept running and running and finally we reached one of the booths. We had people cheering for us: yelling, holding signs, and waving around noise makers. Somehow it was great to have random people cheering us on. A short time after we passed the booth we made it to a water station. These nice people were passing out water to us and luckily it was one of many water stops that would be along the way.

 

 We passed mile two, three, and then finally when we got to four, I decided to take three of my Shot Blocks. They were pretty chewy and I had to drink a lot of water with them, but the important thing was that I kept moving. We passed booth after booth, water station after water station, sign after sign, and with each step it became more real to me. I was running a half-marathon and it did not even seem like it. It did not even seem like I was running at all. The movement was so natural to me at this point. The music placed throughout the course gave me the extra boost I needed at times to keep going. When I saw that we were going to run under a ring of fire, I was a little uneasy, but I figured it was safe otherwise they would not have placed it on the course. So I kept running, but by the time I passed mile five, six, seven, and eight, my body was definitely beginning to feel the pain. Moving definitely got harder, but I told myself I was not going to walk any part of this because I wanted to be able to say, "I ran a half-marathon." So I ate a GU pack and kept moving.

 

The sun was a lot brighter now, but I still had four miles to go so I kept moving, determined to finish this as fast as I could. However, I was sort of cursing the fact that we had to run these miles in the street because my knees were definitely not happy about this. However, I then passed the mile ten marker and saw that it was time to run around Lake Merritt. This was where my eleven weekend runs had taken place. I had run around this lake so many times, however I knew this was going to be the hardest time, but I was wrong about that. As I was running around the lake, there was a water station that helped me make it to mile eleven. By this time I was definitely tired, and I wanted to stop, but I just kept moving. I passed mile twelve and saw another water station, this time I drank some of the water and splashed the rest in my face. This gave me an extra boost I needed for the last mile. That mile seemed incredibly long, but I finally saw the finish line. 

 

I picked up my speed a bit, a little too much, and almost burned out before I actually made it to the finish line. However I slowed down enough to catch my breath and then sped up to cross the finish line. My legs were tired, I was hot, and sweaty, but I finished. All the work I had put in was worth it. I finished the half-marathon in 2 hours and 24 minutes and I could not help but be happy about my greatest accomplishment in life so far.