I feel kind of bad for Pennsylvania.

We definitely did not give Pennsylvania the time it deserves. I mean, there has to be a ton of cool stuff in Pennsylvania, right? Hershey Park? Liberty Bell? Farms? Yeah, I don’t know, clearly I’m drawing a blank.

That being said, for all you Pennsylvanians out there, I apologize in advance. You also should probably not read this blog post because poor PA got kind of skipped over in the “half marathon in all 50 states” mission. Oops.

Mara and I have been talking about doing a half marathon for a while. She was always about the Disney Princess Half Marathon. However, since I can barely run a half marathon normally, let alone in a princess costume, we decided to settle for an alternative.

Philadelphia seemed like a good choice because (1) it is in driving distance, (2) the timing seemed to fit when we were looking to run and (3) the half marathon promised to “love us back”…and you know I’m all about the free stuff.  The best part was that one of Mara’s friends, Cara, and one of my college roommates, Elyana, were going to run it with us too! So we signed up for the Philadelphia Love Run half marathon and I created a 12-week training program that I felt SUPER confident I was going to stick with.

Well…here comes the big surprise! I did not stick to my training program at all. Sigh. I had really good intentions….promise. After my Ft. Lauderdale half, I felt so good about running that I was like, “oh yeah, I got this!” For my first two weeks I was relatively close with sticking to my training program.

And then the Blizzard of 2016 occurred. Womp womp womp.

They didn’t even plow our street for five days, it was impossible to run for a solid 1.5 – 2 weeks. And then I got sick and well I couldn’t run while I was sick, right? (Nope, I’m not coming up with excuses at all haha) By this time it had been 4 weeks since I had run. I hadn’t lost hope though…you can definitely train for a half marathon in 6 weeks! So I ran 8 miles that weekend and I felt real good.

…Then we closed on our house (yay for becoming homeowners!) and I had to move and then I was traveling for work and well before you know it, it was 2 weeks before the race. I ran 10 miles one weekend and 6 miles the next. And then it was half marathon time. And as you gathered from my rather obnoxious complaining, I was super ready.

The weekend of the race, Mara, Cara, and her two roommates (Krista and Hannah) came up from Virginia Tech. On Friday night, we had our first mini-housewarming party in our new house. It was great having everyone over and seeing some people we haven’t seen in a while.

However, hosting parties in a house you rent vs. a house you own is a whole different world. Spill on the floor? Let me casually pause any drinking game while I fix that. Someone seems like they might be sick? Time to throw them outside. Sorry not sorry that it is snowing and hailing.

I was actually pretty impressed with myself in not being a ball of stress the entire night.  Andy kept telling me “Don’t worry, hardwood is tough.” I kept telling myself “Don’t worry if it gets completely ruined we can just replace it” (Maybe slightly aggressive). Truthfully though, I really was able to enjoy myself and have a good time. The next morning though….I woke up at 8:30 AM and even though I was decently hungover, I got up, cleaned everything and was on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor. I have way more respect for maids. It’s not as easy as it looks.

That Saturday, I rode up with Mara and her entourage to Philadelphia. It was here we had surprise #2.

It was snowing.

In April.

WHY WAS IN SNOWING IN APRIL?!? I’m still a little upset about this (as you might be able to tell).

We got to the hotel and Elyana came upstairs to bring us our race packets. Thank goodness she arrived on Friday night with her sisters, because there was no way we would have made it to the city in time to get to the packet pick-up. After seeing Elyana we went to dinner at Chilis (super original) and then came back and slept.

One of the things that was really nice about this race is that it didn’t start until 8 AM. We were able to wake up at 6, eat breakfast around 6:30 and then prepare to leave. One thing that was not nice about this race is that it was freeeezzzzing. It felt like 27 degrees outside. I am not making this up.

We didn’t want to have to wait outside for too long before the race, so our goal was to get to the start line around 7:30. We were only about a mile from the start line which we felt pretty good about. Around 7:15 we started looking for an uber. Get this: to drive one mile would have taken us 15-20 minutes and a minimum of $17. Yeah no thank you. To Mara’s disappointment, we jogged the mile to the start line and arrived there around 7:40.

When we got there we immediately dropped Elyana off with all the other fast people. After she casually mentioned that she ran ten miles at an 8-something mile pace, we knew that we would not be keeping pace with her. Mara, Cara and I walked all the way back to the end of the pace group…around the 11 minute mile mark 🙂

The race started off pretty good. By mile 3 I could feel my hands again. At mile 4 we saw a corgi.

And at mile 6, I was feeling solid as we were almost halfway done. And then it went downhill. Or should I say…then it went uphill. For those of you who may not be aware, Philadelphia is hilly! Like “I-might-die-and-not-make-it-any-farther” kind of hilly. Miles 6.5 – 9 were just straight hills….up and down, up and down (mostly up though). We lost Cara around mile 7 so it was just Mara and I. Around mile 9 I asked Mara if she wanted to stop for water and she said “If I stop, I am not going to start up again.” The truth.
When we got to mile 10, I got a text message saying that Elyana had just finished her half marathon. I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be encouraging, like ‘yeah you’re almost there!’ Instead, I just felt like we were on a never ending run.

Then at mile 11.5, something happened to me that has never happened in a race. Ever. I got a running high! Out of nowhere, I got a complete burst of energy and I felt like I could just keep on running. I was no longer tired and I felt as close to on top of the world as you can feel after running 11 miles (let me be clear, the top of the world after 11 miles is really not that great).

Cara joined us again around mile 12 and the three of us finished out the race together. We ran a 10:45 mile pace, which I was super happy about since we didn’t train at all.

Overall, this race felt really good on a personal level. Did I run a PR? Nope. Did I train at all? Nope. But I was the most mentally prepared and mentally strong that I have ever been for a race. I wasn’t stressing before the race because I knew I could do it and I knew I would do it. During the race, there were times I wanted to stop, but I knew that my body could continue onward. I never doubted that I wouldn’t make it to the end and it was a great experience to feel so confident in a race.

After the race, my legs hated me. It felt like I was dragging 60 extra pounds on my legs every step I took. I barely made it back to the hotel. I showered, ate some chips, and changed clothes while the rest of our crew got ready to leave. Mara’s friends drove us home and that was the end of our Philadelphia trip.

See? I told you we didn’t really treat Pennsylvania well. But we finished the race, so all is good. Five states down. Forty-five left to go.