A girl takes a few days off and you guys go around the bend!

What happened! Jenna's kicking butt at 100km rides, I don't even want to get started on what happened to Susi and Julie (seriously ladies when people say do you want a ride in a rain storm you say thank you! then hope into the warm truck, don't keep riding, crazy girls When God/Alla/Wookie send a canoe in a flood take it!)

Alright first an actual half marathon ost, that I owe Jenna!

I was trying really hard all week to be excited but not nervous about it. It might be my first but it will be my first of many so no reason in the world to be nervous or to allow other to try to make you nervous. I've always been a if you're not having fun then why are you here kinda gal. So I had a good coaching meeting/beer drinking session with Greg on Friday night (he totally made me have the second beer!!) I was feeling like a cucumber until I got on the plane. As soon as the wheels left the tarmac I realized that I had taken my new cushioned orothotics out of my runners and put them into my hiking boots the night before. In my early morning bleary eyed stated I decided to wear my slip on/off sneakers not my hiking boots. I didn't realize my mistake until that moment. I have a few seconds of "Freakin-Frick-Frack" and then realized that I should just chill, I could get insoles at any drugstore and could run on my old orothotics just fine. I had a relaxing day with my Aunt, Uncle and Finola, driving the Stanley Park of the course. Took some pics at the sea, I had a nap in the car while babysitting and generally chilled out. After a awesome carb loaded seafood pasta I crashed early and managed a solid 8 hours of pre-race sleep!

I was up early had a quick shower and changed into my YELLOW Livestrong shirt, I decided to wear my running belt in case the water situation was bad, pulled up my Cancervive "up your Cancer" arm warmers and was good to go! I had a quick breakfast of two eggs and 1/2 cup of oatmeal and toast! (Poor IG just rolled his eyes at me when I said I never eat before a morning workout) We hopped the Skytrain and headed to GM Place, us and 5,000 of our close personal friends! We found the best secret washroom ever! If anyone ever goes to the race find the team locker rooms. They were unlocked and no line up! Awesome.

So I hug my uncle goodbye and attempt to figure out where to place myself. I couldn't find the pace bunnies so I tried to look for people with the typical IM logo/tattoo sadly I was on my own. I had decided to leave the Ipod at home so this was my first run without music, if I can't use it on IM then I need to start getting use to it. The horn goes off and it's about 2 minutes before I cross the mat. Run like the turtle not the hair I keep telling myself.

The course itself was gorgeous. Except the part through sketchy town. Some people had clearly not been to bed in several days. When we entered Stanley park it was stunning, the fog was lifting off the harbour with the boats and sunrise and everything, it was pretty spectacular! I started to feel pretty strong around the 10km mark and naturally fell into a nice 194 bpm run (that's just to make IG sweat) I slowed down being nervous about the "BIG HILL" ahead and having never run past the 16 km point before. I took a gel in around 12km and ran up the "BIG HILL" I have to admit I ate the paste at this point. Everyone around me was slowing right down and half were walking it I thought I must be doing something wrong if I'm passing so many people going up so I slowed down too. It wasn't a bad hill at all! If you can do Cresent Heights then this is a breeze. Don't eat the paste!!! From there it was a LONG downhill back downtown. It was nice to stretch my legs and breath in the sea air. When we hit downtown there was lines of people cheering and it felt great. Now it was pretty flat, there was this guy who I had passed several times on the downhill who really, really didn't like being passed I caught up to him again with a km to go and thought to myself. 'Ok now I'm gonna kick you ass' I pulled out a trick from my friend Jamie and started to jog beside him and chat about the run slowly pushing the pace faster until he was barely saying anything between breaths then I said, I'll see you at the finish line and took off like roadrunner! I really want a t-shirt that says "you've been chicked" on the back

My aunt was cheering us on just before the finish and I threw my baby cousin a kiss and pushed through. Crossing at clock time 1:53 knowing I had really left too much out there and was already thinking about when I can do it again. Then I stopped and thought wow I just did a half marathon! When did that happen? When was I able to do that! I took a deep breath took in the moment. 22km! Seriously.