After all my training and months of preparation, the Big Lake Half Marathon is in the books! My official time ended up being better than I expected!

Placed: 629  Bib Number: 378 Time: 2:11:50

I’ve been training for about three solid months but have had this race on my mind since January!

I decided to be a Wish Racer because I love donating to reputable charities and the Make-A-Wish Foundation is a great organization! My running buddies for this race were Kristina and Peggy, who are also running enthusiasts.

The night before started with a road trip up to Alton Bay, NH to get my bib number and submit my Wish Racing donations. We took a ride on the course and it definitely got my nerves going! I just didn’t know what to really expect. I’ve trained and done my fair share of long distance running, but this was a whole new experience. We had a pasta dinner and Kristina joined us later that night and it was early to bed for a 5am wake up call!

That morning was one of the few where right at 5am, I was out of bed and ready to go! I didn’t feel TOO nervous, until we hit the road. The drive was about 45 minutes long and as we arrived at the elementary school that’s when the nerves kicked in!

I have to say, I was bummed there weren’t more Wish Racers. Not only did we get awesome singlets for being donors, we also scored VIP treatment! I raised $300.00 over the last 5 months and it was completely worth it. I think more people should become Wish Racers. It’s not hard and Make-A-Wish benefits children locally in the community. There’s no minimum for becoming a Wish Racer, so I’m not sure why more people didn’t sign up. We had so much support when we were running and at the end, we got to meet kids who have had their wishes granted. THAT made the whole fundraising aspect of the run worth it! I will definitely be a Wish Racer in years to come.

Along the run, we all had our Iphones/Ipods running and we were also chatting and having a great time! Running with buddies helped tremendously to pass the time and take your mind off running!

We also used gels, jelly beans and Clif Shot Bloks to keep us going when it was getting tough. I never realized how important those energy boosters are in a long distance run. Around mile 10 my ankle was bothering me a bit and I believe I said “I want to amputate my feet”. Kristina was a huge help in pushing through. We gave each other support and she had the RunKeeper app on her phone which we refused to let our pace fall below a 10:00 mile.

When we saw the finish line it was definitely emotional. We crossed together and placed seconds apart. Peggy came soon after, but the three of us stayed in a line for a majority of the race.

We received very colorful medals at the end of the race and My Aunt Gail and Max surprised us with flowers. Kristina’s family was there too, whom I love, so I was happy to have so much support!

Peggy, Kristina and I are deciding on doing the North Conway half marathon in October. For now, we are all enjoying running for fun and not for training. Peggy and I just signed up for the Harvard Pilgrim 10k for July 3rd which takes place at Gillette Stadium!

It’s going to be a great summer for racing!