grete's great gallop.

today i ran my first half marathon and it was amazing! i ran grete's great gallop (part of the norwegian festival), named for grete waitz, who won nine nyc marathons between 1978-1988... more than any other runner in history.

instead of listening to music as distraction/inspiration, i dedicated each mile to someone i love, using the time between miles to meditate on how thankful i am that they are part of my life. mile one was for my mom... mile two was for ana... mile three was rosemary and john... mile four was for my sisters, rhianna, meredith and corinne and their daughters abigail and brooke... mile 5 was for my gramma... mile 6 was for my aunt heidi and uncle bob... mile 7 was for marina (and her twins sophia and natalie, who are due on monday!!)... mile 8 was for kylin, neil and bey... mile 9 was for my dad... mile 10 was for sophia... mile 11 was for catherine ... mile 12 was for alexis, bernadette, chris, courtney and brittany mcvicker (esp for bernadette, who I know has surgery coming up)... and mile 13 was for... me.

there are many, many other people who i love lots and they will fill up the rest of my miles when i run my first nyc marathon in 2009... which I QUALIFIED FOR TODAY!!! today was my last of nine qualifying races to guarantee my entry for next year.

ooo... also, my race number was 1234... how awesome is that? oh and, i finished in one hour, forty-eight minutes, running 8:11 miles... i placed 1384 out of 3871, 359 out of the 1837 women, and 115 out of the 765 in my age group. not bad.

and thank you to my old roomie ciara for cheering at the finish line, helping me finish strong.

post race...