I did It ~

My new journey ~ running.  After having 4 beautiful babies in 5 years I decided while pregnant with Declan that I was going to take up running after he was born.  So instead of shooting for a 5K or 10K race, I decided to go big.  Knowing I would need some type of competition to find my motivation I chose to run the Mankato Half Marathon.  My only goal was to cross the finish line...and I did it!  I'm looking forward to continuing running and entering my next race.  Here are some pictures of the crazy weekend. 

 The last 4 miles were by far the hardest. 

Seeing the finish line was a sight for sore eyes.

 My biggest fans! 

The kids participated in their own races on Saturday at the expo.

 My Mankato training buddy, Jenna.  At the beginning neither of us could run a mile and often questioned why we were doing this!  So happy we stuck it out.  We went from being two scared girls at the beginning to already planning our next half marathon.  The picture to the left is us celebrating the completion of our 12 weeks of training and on the right, the race is done!!

 My sister Teri helped me do several training runs and ran

with me the last mile of the race (when all I wanted to do was quit!).