I met up with the Jonesboro running group around 6:45 am and we hung out until the last minute in the hotel to stay warm. We took off walking the two blocks to the start line about 7:45. We crammed into our corral D/open) at the back of the pack and before we knew it the starting gun went off! We crossed the starting line a little over 2 minutes after the gun went off, which wasn't bad at all.
Debbie (the lady I decided to run with) and I got near the 4:30 pacer since that was around the time we wanted to run it in. I was actually expecting to be slower, and she was hoping to be a little faster, but it was a good medium! The pacer was hilarious and told us all kinds of funny stories to keep us entertained and distracted from the fact that we were only at mile 1 of 26.2. The first few miles just flew by. It stayed pretty crowded for the first 6 miles or so and then started to thin out a bit thankfully. We were able to run pretty consistently from the beginning, which was nice. I only knew one other person who was running the full marathon, and never expected to run into her, but indeed I did! She saw me right after the starting line and we ended up running quite a bit together.
Deb and I were together on our own for most of the first half. We will call this the FUN part of the race:) I loved every minute of the first 13.1 miles. We ran all over downtown Little Rock. There were tons of spectators to cheer us on, lots of things to look at, and the miles just flew by. We were running under a 10 minute pace which was a little fast for me, but I was feeling great.
The best part of this section was how many times I was able to see Silas and the boys! Silas was a rock star this weekend to say the least. He managed to take all of these pictures as he flew around town furiously pushing the two boys in the stroller through the crowds! I saw him 3 or 4 times in the first 9 miles which was awesome. I planned to see him again around mile 18 but no such luck. That was only one of the many reasons we will call the second half, the NOT fun part!! Anyway, Deb and I met back up with Liz around mile 8 or 9 and we had fun talking the miles away. I crossed the half way point in 2:11:31 which was only 3 minutes slower than my race time when I ran the half in November. I was still feeling good at this point, but as soon as the half runners broke off towards the finish line, the full runners took a turn and the uphill battle began......
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