I’m happily posting that, thanks to God, I’ve completed the first half marathon run in my life. It was an exciting experience for me, as well, as a good test of my running skills and, even more, the power of the will.

This was not an official half marathon run, but rather one, which I was completing by myself, with the huge help of God. The run was done on Tuesday evening in the park, which is located close to my home, and consisted of 12 laps around the park, each of the laps being roughly 1,850m, according to my friend’s measurements. So the actual distance I’ve ran is roughly 1,100m meters more than the official half marathon distance. My time for the run was 1:55:41, which is by no means a professional time, but was quite challenging for me. My planned time for the distance was 2 hours, so I can say, that I’ve overdone my plans. :) My speed near the finish decresed by approximately 1mph, in compare with the starting speed, what shows that I haven’t calculated my strengthness really well, and is another proof of my being not a professional runner.

Another important thing to note, is that I’ve done two runs, summing up in roughly 7km in the morning, and 3 runs summing up in roughly 16km the day before, which took some of strengthness, but from the other side, was a good training practice.

It was raining during the most of the run and, I guess, this had more more positive than negative effect on me: the air became more fresh and by having some rain water on my body (not much, though, most of the distance is well-covered by tress) I was better protected from overheating.

After the run was done I felt legs soreness and hardly kept myself walking on them. When I came home, I felt my leg hurting near the basin, but the ache was over by the next day. Also, besides my mother’s massage an hour or two after the run, I’ve been taking massage sessions for the past two days, which helps me to accelerate the recovering process. I’ve still felt legs soreness during today’s and yesterday’s morning jogging but it’s keeping descreasing day-by-day.

This run was an impotant event for me, as I’ve spent around two and a half months prepairing to it, at first once a day, and then, the week before the event, switched to the twice-a-day training mode. I hope it is only a start for my running achievements, and that I will complete the full marathon in the future! :)

I want to thank everyone, who contributed to my result, especially: my parents and grandparents for bringing me up, my friends and relatives for giving me support, wikipedians who’ve written the running-related articles, which helped me with useful information and coming up with a decision to finish a half marathon, and world running legends who were my inspiration before, during and after the run! And, most of all, I want to thank the Lord, thanks to whose unmeasurable support I am, who I am now.

Oh, and how enjoyable it is to drink home-made lemonade after such a run!