I got to the BART station and I kept thinking about the race. I walked to Snow Park and I was amazed by the amount of people that were there. I couldn't believe that so many people were there it was awesome. I signed in at the RBO tent and shortly after I saw Mr. Schooler, Ivan and Alex. Mr. Schooler told me that the race was going to start soon. We stretched and after that we walked towards the start of the race. There were a lot of runners and we joined them.
As I stood there I was excited but also a little nervous. It was my first time running this distance but I felt that I was ready. After waiting for about five minutes the race began! We started jogging at a slow and steady pace. I looked around me and it was awesome to be able to run in the middle of the street. As I was running I could her people cheering. We ran about two more miles at a steady pace and then we started speeding up. Before I knew it we were already at the fourth mile. I kept running and we ran by the Saint Elizabeth water station. They handed us water and then we kept on going.
On our sixth mile we ran inside of a tunnel and it was a really cool experience. It was nice to have a lot of different things to look at while we were running. There was music on our race route and I felt that the music really gave me a boost. I felt great until I hit the ninth mile, this is when I started to feel tired. I ignored this and told myself that I wasn't tired and that I could keep going. I had four miles left and it didn't seem like a big deal to me. I kept going until the 11th mile and that was when I started to slow down. I felt like my legs were really heavy and I felt that something was holding me down. Mr. Schooler told me that I couldn't let that voice in my head bring me down. I had to remind myself that I could do it. Mr. Schooler really helped me out a lot and he told me that I would finish.
We made it to Lake Merritt and I remembered all of the times that I ran around the lake. I thought about all of the times and all of the training that I had done. The last mile was really tough for me as it seemed like I was ready to give up. I no longer felt strong and I just wanted to walk the rest of the way. Mr. Schooler told me that I had already ran around the lake before and that today was no different. He told me to keep going and to not give up. I didn't give up and I tried to distract myself from the running by looking at all of the places around me. This helped me to not think so much about the running but I also felt like the running would never end. I had to push myself to keep going no matter how much I wanted to stop. I kept going and after what seemed like a long time I saw that we had passed the lake. We had less than half a mile left and I kept going with everything that I had.
Mr. Schooler pointed towards the finish line and I saw the red banner in the distance. I started to jog faster but as I got closer to the finish line I felt discomfort in my right leg. I pulled my right calf muscle and it felt like my leg was harder to move. I did my best to ignore it and I pushed myself through the finish line. When I finally stopped running I couldn't believe it. I received my medal and I put it around my neck. At that moment I felt really happy and I was very proud of myself. I had finished running the half-marathon.
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