My half marathon experience

In April, my sister, Candice signed up to do a half marathon.  She asked the rest of us if we wanted to do it with her.  She emailed me a running schedule.  I started running to see if I would stick to it.  I ran the schedule for a month, then decided that I would go ahead and do the half.  The actual race was on July 7th.  I had plenty of time to train.
  I don't particularly like running, but it changed up my regular workouts.  I had no problem getting out of bed early and going for my run.  I actually felt good doing it.
  Sometime in June, I tweaked my knee putting the recliner leg rest down funny.  That hindered my running for a couple weeks.  I was able to do my short runs, with a little pain here and there.  It didn't always hurt as I was running, but after when I was home going up and down the stairs.
  Before I hurt my knee, the farthest that I have gone was 10 miles.  I didn't do anymore long runs because of my knee.  I wanted to rest it.  The week before the half, my knee felt better.  You taper the last week before the race, so all the runs were 3, 4, or 5 miles.  I had that, no problem.  I figured that I did 10 miles, that three more wouldn't be that big of a deal to do.
  The night before the race, we slept at my brother's house in South Jordan.  My sister in law opened the windows before bed.  It was hot at first, and felt muggy, so I had a hard time falling asleep.  I was thinking all kinds of things like, it was going to rain and the rain was going to wash away the chalk lines to show us where to go.  I was thinking we were going to get lost and would have to run a whole bunch of extra miles.  Then their baby woke, up and woke me up (not that I was really sleeping).  Needless to say, I got maybe and hour or two of sleep that night because my head wouldn't turn off.  I was up with a massive headache at 3a.m. Out of bed and reading my book at 4.  Why try to sleep now?  I have to be up in an hour.
  We made it to the starting line at 5:30 to pick up our packets.  We didn't need to be that early, but oh well.  I asked how many people signed up.  She said 104.  There were not 104 people there when the race started.
  The race started at 6.  The first mile was flat, then after that there were several hills.  We ran past the Oquirr Mountain temple, up more hills.  I had to walk after the hills to catch my breath for a little bit. By the time 8 miles rolled around, I was running out of steam.  My nose was stuffed, but a little runny at the same time.  I couldn't breathe through my nose, so I was in and out with my mouth.  I was getting dizzy and light headed a couple times.  That could be because of a couple different things. 
1.  No breakfast
2.  I had 2 shot blocks that are caffeinated
3.  Breathing in and out of my mouth?
4.  Elevation?
  Towards the end of the race, I was doing more walking than running.  My goal heading into this was to finish.  My sister's goal was to finish under 2 hours, mine was 3.  We made it under 3.  I knew I couldn't do it in 2 hours, not with only three months of training.  Most runners have at least 6 months of running before they even try to do a half (at least that is what is suggested).  I made it in 2:49. 6th in my age group, 42 overall.  I was glad to know that I was not dead last.  My sister sprinted ahead at the last 1/4 mile.  I was spent and couldn't run fast, but I did run through the finish line! 
  I was happy to accomplish my goal and working towards something like this that was hard and not in my norm.  I might actually do it again sometime with more training behind me.  For now, I think I will stick to 5ks!!
  After the race, we had a baptism to go to at 12:30.  I was still feeling light headed and weird by then.  I started feeling better after taking a nap that afternoon. 
  The next day, I felt fine, no real aches and pains.  My right knee hurt going up and down stairs, which is not the one I hurt last month.  I could "feel" my quads, but they didn't hurt.