My best friend Cristy and I followed Jenny Hadfield and John Bingham’s book, “Marathoning for Mortals” training program. It was 14 weeks and we ran through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. That already makes us awesome in my book. What’s more awesome is that Cris just had a baby 5 months ago. That certifies her, a trooper.
I became a fan of the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon series after my first half in L.A. last October. The St. Petersburg Inaugural half marathon was Sunday, Feb. 12th and it felt like 30 degrees outside that morning. No joke. The wind was pretty piercing and did not care that it was pushing against us trying to ruin our PR goal. They had about 7,000 runners and maybe because it was cold, not that many spectators. When we ran past the official spectator party bar area, I saw like 5 people out there. Fortunately Cris and I have our own inner motivation and moving playlists that got us through the 13.1. They did have bands every few miles, some were good and some were awful, but they were out there in the cold none the less. The cheerleaders and other groups out there were very nice to hear as they cheered us on as well.
The course offered nothing too interesting until about 6 miles. We went through several beautiful parks and through the downtown area sites like the Dali Museum, and my favorite was running around the St. Petersburg Pier. The wind was vicious on one side of the pier but calm coming around the other side towards mile 9. Then it was really beautiful because we could see the water and the sun had finally come out to warm us up. I really appreciate and love my Garmin watch now. I was able to keep our pace and make sure that we were on target. Our goal was to finish in 2:45 doing run/walk intervals, alternating 3 minute run/ 2 minute walk. I think it was around mile 10 that I got the worse cramp in my right side. I held on to it, tried to breathe, drank some water and ate the rest of my Gu and it finally went away. I remember thinking that we were doing so well and I didn’t want to ruin it for us and kept pushing on.
Around mile 12 we saw our best friend Kristian! That was really nice and he looked so cold, but proud of us! Towards the end Cristy’s husband, Fabian took some video of us and my husband Brett snapped a picture of us running towards the finish line. It was very rewarding for me when John Bingham himself announced our names as we approached the finish. He said “Here we have Cris Rida and Liz Rida, the backup girls for Flo Rida!” Our shirts were definitely a hit that day. I can’t remember the number of runners that told us they loved the back of our shirts as they ran passed us. But Cristy had ironed on those nick names for us and it made for an interesting topic. Flo Rida was the headlining act after all, so it made sense.
Crossing that finish line with my best friend was priceless. We’ve known each other for over 16 years and all those long runs on Saturdays led us together to this finish line. That was really just the beginning of so many things for us. We ran to catch Flo Rida and danced and snapped pictures and he was even carried through the audience right to us. Kristian, Brett and Fabian kept snapping pictures and our smiles were pretty permanent. Let’s just say my face hurt more than my legs or any other muscle. We finished in 2:46:28. I’m proud. For my 2nd half marathon, I’ll take it. My first one I finished in 2:51:43. This is better. We rocked. 
