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Yesterday, I embarked on my first-ever Women’s Half-Marathon in Washington, D.C (#WeRunDC, ha!). I’ve never been the most athletic, so what would possess me to challenge myself physically–and to such extremes? Perhaps it was the alarming statistic that “4 out of 5 African American women are obese or overweight.”

The Nike Women’s Half-Marathon started with our arrival in Washington, D.C. Saturday afternoon at the beautiful historic Omni Shoreham Hotel.  Hubby and I headed over the Georgetown to the Nike Registration for the Half-Marathon. Seeing the maze of the long line with women from every conceivable age group, every size and color was so inspiring. The line moved quickly to receive our race information and racing bib with chip for my family to track my every mile along the course.  My race bib # 17060 which means there were over 17,000 women registered to run or walk the 13.1-mile half-marathon. Can you imagine?

After registration, we ventured over to the Nike Expotique, a huge tent where the ladies could come get pumped up with fun activities like: get a chair back massage, sample Nunn products to help us stay hydrated, complimentary makeovers and an opportunity to win Nike clothing or running sneakers all to a pulsating beat. How could you not be excited after all that?

Saturday evening included Central Pennsylvania Team Meeting for the 50 participants for reminders about need to know information for enjoying the race, safety instructions and team photo tomorrow at 5:15 am.

Let’s go through the actual day of the marathon, shall we?

5:15 AM Team Photo

5:30 AM The Central Pennsylvania team headed over to Pennsylvania Ave via the Metro to join the over 17,000 women registered to run or walk.  It was certainly a sight to see!

6:30 AM Walkers and runners are grouped by the pace they plan to walk or run. Obviously, the seasoned runners being in the very front of the pack.  Talk about being a sardine in a can but the excitement and thrill of being among women that raised a minimum of $2000.00 per person to participate felt like an adrenaline rush.  I believe the participants raised over $2 Billion dollars for Leukemia and Lymphoma.

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7:00 AM The race starts but it takes more than a few minutes for the pace group that I was assigned to start moving along Pennsylvania Avenue and continued along the Potomac River.  Now why did I think that I could start out fast paced?  Perhaps it was the thrill of being amongst the women thinking that I could keep up.  Mile 2, I saw that I was not able to keep up the fast pace and I needed to focus on the pace that I trained with my husband, slow but sure.

8:45 AM, I saw the bus (that comes to pick up the stragglers that may not finish the marathon on time) on the other side of the road, boy did that motivate me to pick up my pace.  My goal for my first ever marathon was to complete the race on my own without the bus driving me over the finish line.  I was told that if I kept up my new found pace I should complete the race before the 11:00 end time. It was easy to get motivated along the course with curbside cheerleaders providing words and signs of encouragements, live entertainment and of course the training coaches. It did help also to know that my family was waiting to see me cross the red carpeted finish line.

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The ultimate motivation was not only the “thrill of victory” and my family watching me cross the finish line but Nike provided each and every runner or walker a specially designed necklace from Tiffany’s presented to me on a silver tray by a handsome young man in a tuxedo.  Not bad for motivation, right?

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Have you challenged yourself physically?  Have you ever participated in a full or half-marathon?