Post Race and Recovery

Hey all,

We did it. A month of pretty intense training proved to really help us a lot in running our 13.1 Chicago Half-Marathon. I am so proud of my wife and I for sticking with the training program we set up for ourselves and then pushing ourselves on race day to finish. Our official time was 2:08:52. This is an amazing time considering we were planning on 10 to 10 1/2 min miles. That breaks down into 9:51 min miles. I still cannot believe we ran it that fast. It was very uplifting to be able to pass more people than people passing us. It felt good to be able to set our minds to do this and do it above our own expectations.

At about mile 9 or 10 I had the idea to go through the alphabet and pray for someone whose name starts with that letter. It was very interesting to see who God put into my head for each letter. Some of the people I have never prayed for before. So if you felt a little bit of encouragement last Sunday, it could have been me praying for you!! Anyway, this alphabet pray got me through the last few miles, and I really feel God was blessing and helping me for blessing others. I could really feel Him with me and us during the run.

I put recovery in the title, but it is not like I have been on bed rest the last couple days. I was a little stiff on monday but back in full swing by the end of monday. Amanda had work the next day and was just fine. That just amazed me. However, I think it hit her yesterday. She came home and was beat. Just tired and ready to sleep. But Race plus 4 and we are ready to get back into it. We want to keep up with running on a regular basis. I know it has been very good for my health especially.

So, thank you all for your thoughts and words of encouragement to us over the last month. I am looking forward to future races that include more half-marathons! Come join us!! Its worth it!

Love Will Amanda and Bry