Helsinki City Run

This past weekend I ran my first half marathon, the Helsinki City Run, and I couldn't be happier with finally accomplishing this goal! The day was completely and utterly perfect, and I know I will look back on it fondly for years to come. The weather was somewhere in the 60s, with sunshine and not too much wind, but just enough to make it truly perfect running weather. The company I had was also perfect, and additionally it was really motivating and inspiring to run my first half marathon with Dave and my classmate Rene, running buddies are great! I have not run a formal race since the last cross-country meet I ran in high school, back in 2004, so it's been 9 years since I last did a formal race, and I forgot the high you get after participating in races. 

I have been telling myself since finishing high school, and subsequently my cross-country career, that I would start running marathons in order to never lose my motivation to be a runner, but as life happens sometimes things get pushed to the wayside. One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to run a half marathon, and I'm so proud to be able to check that off this year! Signing up for the half marathon was truly one of the better things that I have ever done for myself, and I envision that I will run many more in the future, and ideally work my way up to being brave enough to run a full marathon. I am sold on the idea of running a spring mini marathon, by the way, because it forces you to run all winter in order to train for the spring race, and the winter is the hardest time to stay inspired to run. Having the inspiration to run in the winter, when it's so easy to sit indoors and be lazy and indulge in the darkness and cold temperatures was very important for me this year, and I am convinced that this is my cure-all for the winter blues! I have already been looking up other half and full marathons to find another one to keep my motivation up and spirits going, and I vow to never have another shit winter now that I know the joy of spring mini marathons. 

I had set an arbitrary goal of completing the half marathon in just under two hours, and would have been even beyond ecstatic with a time of 1:59.59, but I am sad to report that I didn't quite reach my goal, but rather came in at 2:02.42. Realistically, I can admit that this is a great time for my first half marathon, and I am truly grateful for having even completed the marathon, but I will just have to train a little harder to meet this goal next time. I had to stop to tie my shoe at one point, and I'm convinced that this is what did me in haha ;) Also, I mistakenly signed up for the slowest class of runners, not trusting in my running abilities, and therefore I literally spent the whole run passing people, which is great for my psyche, but slows you down a bit because people don't make it easy to pass them sometimes. This is just turning into runner jibberish that I know most of you don't care about, so I'll move on to pictures and say thank you to everyone for the congratulations and support, it meant so much! 

This lady was just playing it so cool, no stress for her while she waited for the start.

This is how Rene and I waited for the start...

And this is how we stretch.

It kind of turned into a photo shoot..

I'd like to draw your attention to my sparkly leggings.

I found this guy, and he was my leggings competition.. I was trying to take it to a ridiculous level, and not many other people were, so I appreciated this guy getting into it!

Dave stretches.

The pink group waiting for our start!

The nerves were starting to kick in. (Dave isn't with us because he was in a faster starter class, which left earlier).

They had balloons to correspond to each of the start groups, here is the beginning of the pink group, waiting for the horn to blow!

Action shot!

Running into the finish..

And there I am finishing!

I stole this photo from the marathon website, another action shot for you!

In the end, it was truly a great experience that will go down in the books as a perfect day. I finished 6,775 out of 17,000 runners, and if you only look at just the female runners, I finished 981 out of 3,185. I found it mind blowing that there were also 71 countries represented, damn! Afterwards we came back to my apartment and had a get together with some friends, and it was a truly perfect ending to a perfect day! A barbecue coupled with sauna is a perfect combination, I hope to do it more now that the weather is shaping up nicely! Oh, also, if you want to see a geeky video that they made of me, check out the following link..
http://results.ultimate.dk/events/2013/run/helsinkicityrun/video/flash/front/index.php?pid=18350