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Run with Me - Nicole Santiago-Sanchez

I decided to run a half marathon as my 2014 goal. My goal for 2013 was to run a 5k, and I surpassed that by running 3 this past fall. I wanted to challenge myself this year. The most difficult part about training for me was weather and scheduling time. Since the half marathon was early May, my training was done in cold, winter weather. It was a real cold and snowy winter, so I had to work my runs around how icy it was outside.

I thought the run went well considering my knee pain. I had it in my head that I was going to run the whole course without walking. The knee pain was on and off for the first 6 miles, but I really started feeling it around mile 10. At that point I thought about walking a bit, but it actually felt worse walking and I just wanted to finish. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I wasn't about to drop out when I was so close to finishing. I just slowed my pace down, but I'm proud to say that I completed it without walking.

I've been running on and off for almost 10 years. Mostly 1 or 2 miles on a treadmill just for exercise.  I've stopped a couple times due to injury and pregnancies and didn't realize I had a passion for running until I was unable to do it.  I never thought of doing races before last year, but I found signing up for some kept me motivated (along with my best friends that joined me on the races). Last fall we completed 3 5ks, the color run, the firefly run (nighttime/backlight run), and run for your lives (a zombie/obstacle course). This year, along with the half marathon, we signed up for the color run again at the end of May and the electric run (I think sometime in September). There are a couple other 5Ks I was thinking of running and I haven't decided yet whether or not to run another half marathon this year