The Few, The Proud...The Buzzettes

After the Budapest half marathon our running crowd shrunk way down, but today Chelsey, Rebecca and I finished our second half marathon exactly two weeks after our first! This one was right here in Aviano, so the logistics were way easier. It has been raining for the past 3 days, so we were all suprised when it turned into such a nice day. Here is a shot of the three of us getting ready to start. It was pretty cold at 0730, but it turned into a beautiful day!



The course was super muddy from the rain and I totally fell into a ditch trying to avoid some particularly thick mud on the route. My shoes are already in the washing machine! This race was organized by people here on base and whoever was supposed to measure it didn't get it quite right. A half marathon should be 13.1 miles...this route was 15.2!! So this makes it the longest run I have ever done...nothing like 2 extra bonus miles through the mud!

Chelsey, Rebecca and I have been training together all summer, so this was our last "big run" before the guys get home. We decided to do this one up right, and run for our guys. We showed our love with their call signs "tattooed" (with marker of course) on our arms. We then emailed a copy of it to them in the desert...they would be proud of us.

Budapest-My First Half Marathon!!

Before all our husbands left a group of Buzzettes came up with the idea to train together for a half marathon...it would give us something fun to work towards, and in May any goal in September seemed really far away. So throughout the entire summer we have been running. There has been a great group of ladies working out together and we all made amazing progress. The first weekend in September we all packed up (some with all their kiddos too) and made the road trip to Budapest. It took about 8 hours to get there, but it was an amazing city! You don't really hear much about it, but I would totally go back...and hopfully I will get to go with Kevin next time.

We desided that we deserved a little pampering and stayed at a very nice hotel right near the Chain Bridget in the center of town. The race was Sunday morning...here's a picture of our Buzzette group that morning before leaving for the race start.



We thought it would be fun to get squadron shirts, and it turned out to be a great idea because the race was really crowded, so this made it way easier to find each other...just look for the huge mass of purple.

We all started together and we ran right past our hotel where some of the non-running ladies took pictures as we passed. Here's me and Tiffany about to cross the Chain Bridge (about 5K in I think).



This has been an amazing goal to work towards, and it has been great to work towards it with such a wonderful and strong group of women. I look forward to our weekend runs, and I know that our many mornings of venting while running kept me sane. I will admit I nearly cried as I crossed the finish line. All I could think about was how proud Kevin would have been of me...I wish he could have been there to see me finish. But, I guess that means I just have to run a full marathon when he gets back to make up for it!:) It was such a positive experience that I am running my second half marathon tomorrow morning here in Aviano...I totally see how this running thing gets addicting:)