Dallas Running Club Half Marathon

What a weekend! Ours was jammed packed full of activities as usual. Of course, it was Halloween weekend so we were up early on Saturday for gymnastics and them pumpkin carving! Jason did an amazing job and Madelyn was a wonderful helper. We went to our neighborhood party at the country club. There was a bounce house, DJ, face paiinting etc. Madelyn was all about the bounce house and the slide and played for close to an hour there. Little Mackenzie was worn out by that point and decided to take a little nap. We came home around 5pm got things prepared for dinner then hit the streets for some trick or treating! Madelyn was a ballerina and did such a fantastic job knocking on doors and saying "trick or treat!". She loved every minute of it - except for the scary haunted house house. We went to about 8 or 9 houses then headed home to eat and hand out candy of our own. Everyone went to bed at a reasonable hour and got ready for the time change.
I was up at 5:15 to feed Mackenzie and get ready for the Dallas Running Club half marathon. It was my fist in quite some time and I wasnt planning on running it but early in the week decided to after all. I had a minor set back when i ran 8 miles on Wednesday and hurt my sciatic nerve. Wasn't sure I was going to participate again but gave myself 3 days to rest and was good to go on Sunday. The race started at 8am at White Rock Lake and it was a chilly 49 degrees at the start. What an amazing race...3138 people showed up to run-it's awesome how many runners there are out there. The first 8 miles were pretty easy - a lot of hills but easy overall. At mile 8 though my back just totally tightened up. Up to that point I was running 8-8:30 minute miles which is still slightly fast for me. So I took 2-3 minutes and stretched and then hit the next 5 at a slower pace. The sun was out in full force and it was around 70 degrees at the end. At miles 10 I really had to dig deep - i was in pain but was so close to the finish. I didnt finish like I wanted but kept to a 9 min mile pace. Regardless i am pretty happy with my results. I came in 59th out of 314 runners in my age group (females 30-34) and finished 975th out of 3138 total runners. So the top 1/3 is not too shabby. Want to shave about 5+minutes off that time for White Rock in Dec.
Came home yesterday and went to lunch with the family. Then the girls took naps and we did some stuff around the house and Mady and I headed off to the park. Overall a fabulous weekend!