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| Traditional post-race beer with Jane & Carrie |
I ran - and finished - my fourth half marathon yesterday. As with the previous two, Jane and I ran together (so this was her third). She finished in 1176th and I was 1177th. We both had a time of 2 hrs 36 minutes. That included a couple of potty breaks and stopping to chat with the grandkids along the way. So we probably averaged closer to 11-minute miles than 12, but time was never our concern. Daughter Carrie, on the other hand, ran the 4-mile and set a personal best for her. She didn't even train and got 82nd out of 1748 women!
As I wrote previously, we were neither one overly prepared for this year's half. However, I think we probably felt better at the end of this one than any. Jane's shin splints (from earlier in the summer) never bothered her, and my back pain - which had just happened this past week - was not a problem at all. I did experience some slight left knee pain around the 10th mile, but it wasn't an issue. I'm not sure what caused it because I haven't had any problems with my knees all summer. Otherwise, we were both breathing nice and easy and able to chat the entire time. So, I count it a success. We don't even feel too bad this morning. Just some minor soreness in our legs.
As for the race itself, it was pretty typical. I have no idea how many ran this year. It didn't seem like quite as many because we were never too crowded, but who knows. We purposely chose to start farther back than our corral assignment and that seemed to work out pretty well. We didn't really encounter any idiot runners or fans/volunteers along the way. About the only 'problem' I can think of was the mental aspect of having the 4-milers blowing by us over the final 3 miles. It's just a little demoralizing while trying to hang on and finish 13 miles, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
I still have the memory of a dream of running a full marathon someday, but I will likely settle for just trying to do a half once a year. It's something to shoot for every year, and is usually doable. It would be nice to run it a little faster, but again, time is not really the concern.
So, that's about it for this year's race. I'll be 54 in a month, I'm feeling fairly healthy, so I'd say I'm pretty blessed.