My First Half Marathon

Jess and I waiting to start! 

Well yesterday was the day, the day I completed my first half marathon. Never did I think I would run 13.1 miles without stopping. But I did it, and I did it in 2:06! Here is how it went down! 

 We got up and had some breakfast and then headed out to the start. Now it has been chilly in the mornings recently so we were ready with our light jackets. But when we walked out of the hotel we realized we didn't need them, which meant it was going to be a warm day! We got to the starting line and waited to start. We realized very quickly that it was going to be a very windy run. Which I wasn't a big fan on. The one positive, the wind would be to our back the last km to the finish line! We started and Jess and I ran together for the first 10km then we hit some head wind and I told her to go ahead and I did the best I could to keep pace. The picture to the right is at the 11km marker about half way. People are looking to the right and clapping because the professional runners were on the other side of the road with just 3km to go. We all started together, they were running fast! 

I felt pretty good the whole time, at about 18km I was getting tired and again we were running into the wind. But I saw the finish line and I kept pushing! This picture is jut before the finish line!

 

Jess finished just under 2 hours! She did a great job, and I was lucky to have a great friend to train for this half marathon, I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it without her! In the picture below we were ready to stretch and relax after a good hard run!

Will I do another half marathon? Ben asked me that right after, when my hips were killing me and my legs were tired and I said NO! But today I feel good and would love if I could break 2 hours. So maybe there is another half marathon in my future.

Thanks to my wonderful husband for supporting me and taking pictures!

HSBC Golf Tournament in Abu Dhabi

A couple weeks ago Ben and I attended the HSBC Golf Tournament here in Abu Dhabi. I wasn't really expecting too much. I figured we would see the players but never really go up close. I told Ben on Friday when we were heading out there, you know I don't think I will come tomorrow I have stuff to do. Well we had so much fun on Friday we did go back Saturday, especially since we wore red we got in for FREE! 

We got super close to the players. At one point Tiger and Mcilroy walked by me, I was so close I could have touched them! And then probably be escorted off the golf course so I kept my hands to myself. On another hole Mcilroy squatted down right in front of me while he was lining up his shot. I wanted to tell him to get out of my way so I could watch Tiger putt but thought that would be rude. 

On Friday we followed Tiger, Mcilroy, Donald and watched them on all 18 holes. There weren't too many people on Friday so like I said, we were close. But on Saturday there were a tone more people so we went to the holes where we knew we could get a good view and we could get ahead of the Tiger and Mcilroy crowd. On this par 3 hole we watched a couple groups. This guy name Rock almost got a hole in one and we noticed he wasn't wearing a hat, which was strange because although it's not super hot these days it is still very sunny. But he had Justin Bieber hair so we figured he didn't want to mess it up. We actually watched him a couple times and he ended the day tied for first with Tiger.

As you know we work on Sunday here (something I can't wait to get back when we move back to the states) so we couldn't go watch the final day. Although Ben and I both thought about it because we had so much fun the last two days. Rock, the guy with great hair, ended up winning! Which was pretty cool.