Race day for the Davis Stampede started with my usual morning wakeup. I had a bar and a banana for breakfast and went back to bed for 2 more hours.

The race started at 8am, and was only 20 minutes away, so I didn’t have to get up too early. My second alarm went off at 6:15.

Once we got to the race start area, we got all our stuff together. Time seemed to go quickly and the bathroom line was pretty long, so we ended up jumping in the start line with only a minute to go!

My initial goal was to aim for about a 2:00 half marathon.

The first mile I completed at a 9:08, and felt great! The pacer for 2:00 passed me after 1.5 miles– she was going a little too fast I think, but I decided to just stick with her. She slowed down after realizing she was going too fast, but I was feeling so good that I decided to keep up the speedy pace.

At mile 6 I stopped for a quick pit stop. What felt like a short stop actually increased my average pace by 7 seconds! Killer. But I kept plugging along.

Miles 6-8 were on a gravelly path, which felt much more difficult than running on pavement. I give props to those who do trail running!

In the last few miles, my legs were really feeling tired, but I kept myself moving as fast as my short little legs could carry me.

My final time was 1:56:06. A PR by 5 seconds!!

 I am SO proud of this since I don’t feel like I did my best training, and I also had the pit stop. It makes me so much more excited to see how I will do in March after putting in some more mileage.

Not only did I PR, but Ryan had a HUGE PR in his 10k. He beat his previous time by 3 minutes! I am so excited for him.

 We celebrated another great day of racing by hanging out with friends, playing games, eating lots of amazing food, and watching the Super Bowl (in compression gear, of course).

Can’t wait to see how the rest of my 2013 racing season goes!