Johnston's Wichita Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

With more than 700 runners (a record for this race), it was a little congested at the beginning but soon cleared out. I was pretty nervous, and just tried to relax at the beginning.

Mile 4 I remember noticing how awesome my legs felt.

Mile 6 I ate a GU.

Mile 7 I realized I was over halfway done with my first Half Marathon and got a little emotional. A sappy song came on my iPod and I seriously got choked up. I couldn't believe I was semi-crying in a race! There is no crying in races! Ok let's focus on getting done.

It started getting a little warm, I was grabbing Gatorade at the aid stations along with drinking the Nuun water I carried with me.

Mile 9 my right hamstring hurt, bad.

Mile 10 the hammie felt fine! I am almost to the point of my longest training run (11 miles).

Mile 11 I thought to myself... I'm entering new territory, this is awesome! The next two miles were rough... I wanted to stop. My knee and legs were hurting. I kept thinking to myself - the only thing I want to do is tell Tom that I didn't stop when I see him at the finish line. I WASN'T GOING TO STOP, DAMNIT!

Mile 12... only 1 more mile to go... Lisa you can run for 1 mile, you can. This is where I saw my Mom! She had come out before church (by herself), which was so cool. She took a picture of me and let me know I had about a mile left to go.

Now I could see and hear the crowd... I am going to finish without stopping! Holy crap! Ran into an old roomate out of nowhere - it was actually the girl whose back I'd been staring at for about a mile. Random. Cruised into the finish line with smiles.


Nothing. My goal was to not stop and I didn't.

I quickly found Tom and my leg kinda buckled underneath me.. that was wierd. Also met Jason (El Flaco) and watched the awards ceremony.


Fixing my knee would probably help. Making an appointment this week.


Run Wichita puts on great races. The First Gear guys have the timing thing down! Lots of aid stations and well-marked miles.