A beatiful day in Bastrop~Zooma Half Marathon

This Site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

I did it!  It was awesome.  Exhilarating. Crazy. Challenging. Hilly. Exhausting. Painful. Fun. The weather was absolute perfection.  Chilly enough at the start that left it cool throughout.  I stuck with my friend Heather and Stacey the whole time and our official finish time was 2:34:28. We hoped to finish under 2:40, so we were very happy with that! We pretty much ran the entire time except for about 1 minute at each water station (every other mile).  I am pretty amazed that I ran 13 miles, but in the back of my mind, I feel like I want to do a full marathon now.  That just might be crazy though.  My legs are achy and I’m walking like I have some sort of ailment, but the pain feels good.

Here is our before shot.  Hubby took it just before I loaded my luggage into the car for our overnight getaway before the race. We at a yummy carb loaded meal at Maggiano’s just after this.

 Below, we are gettin’ ready for the run at our hotel room.  We had to force ourselves to go to sleep.  All of these below taken with my mini orange pocket camera.  Sorry about the red-eye.  I don’t get that much, so don’t have that art perfected in photoshop.  

We woke up at 5am, had to drive to the Austin airport to catch a shuttle (a.k.a. yellow school bus) which drove us 13 miles to Bastrop to the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort.  It was quite chilly for an April morning in Texas.  About 40 degrees.  We stayed warm in the hotel lobby stretching and taking a few bathroom breaks after chugging gatorade to pre-hydrate ourselves.

Here we are at the start.  I kept my little orange camera in my pack for the run.  Hubby thought I was crazy, and though it did feel a bit heavier, I was glad I had it;)  Start was 7:30am.  We did a group huddle hug before the start when we had already ditched our warm clothes.  Though we registered our team name as BYU Mommas, we didn’t get around to making something fun for our shirts.  I am bummed we didn’t do that, but we got lots of ideas for next time. Matching visors, hues of blue–thats pretty good, right?

I love the excitement of the crowds at the beginning of a race. Loved seeing them go up a hill.  See, I wouldn’t have this fun shot if I didn’t carry my camera in my pouch!

Along the course, they had inspirational quote signs.  There were some MAJOR hills we ran up and down.  I wish I had a better picture of that.

It was fun knowing I had a few other friends running.  My neighbor, I never saw, but I saw my friends Candida and Jeannette along the course twice.  They finished almost 30 minutes ahead of me–amazing!

The last 3 miles of the run was along a golf course.  Pretty, but annoying that I saw lots of people ahead and unsure how far ahead they were.  The last 2 miles were tough.

The mile markers were good and bad.  Bad when we were at 3,4, and 5.  I had to commemorate mile 11 because before the race, this was the furtherst we had run.  At least Heather and I.   It was tough at the end, and we just kept pushing. Heather said, “Kristen, we need more stories!” So I did my best to keep our minds busy with some random stories in my repertoire.  By the end of the day, I had partially lost my voice.

Our finish time was 2:34:28 and we were pretty happy about that!  Emotional at the end when we finished…a big group hug and a few tears of joy.

After walking, stretching, chatting, congratulating each other, and recounting the miles, we headed back to the bus when I got a text from my friend Rachelle that she was getting on the bus and sad we missed each other.  I ran up to find her and snapped this pic.  She’s got 7 kids–including quintuplets–she’s pretty darn awesome.

Heather, Stacey, and I had a light lunch at Jason’s Deli on the way home.  When I got home, I crashed for nearly 2 hours.  When I woke up, I requested a service from my boys.  They rubbed my legs down, and it was pretty good.  Hubby gave me a stronger one later on.

 Hooray, I did it! And I’m totally ready to do it again!!!  However, I wouldn’t mind fewer hills next time.  I love these girls, I will now call them my sole sistas.

Privacy Policy