Forget Remember, remember, the fifth of November…from now on I’m always going to remember the 11th. On November 11th I ran my first half-marathon. Why you ask? Because I couldn’t find a triathlon that fit into my schedule and I figured running is waaay harder than swimming or biking, so the half marathon’s actually a bigger challenge. Sometimes my logic astounds me.
Better yet somehow I talked two friends into joining the madness with me. Well actually I talked three into it, but Gillian proved that she has more sense then the rest of us combined and decided against it in the end. We spent Saturday night in a hotel 0.3 miles from the Alamo (thank you Trang you brilliant woman), woke up to a 6am wake up call, stumbled into my fancy new socks and then to the starting line, and KA-BOOM cannons exploded in front of the Alamo. Forget some piddely little shot-gun start, this is Texas!
13 miles is a looooong way. We went through poor neighborhoods covered in litter, rich neighborhoods with historic homes, back and forth over the river walk, through downtown twice, through the Mission state historic park, and ended in the Alamo Dome. When I was in England I ran 13 miles with my Dad and had the insane idea that it wasn’t so bad and that I could do a full one. At little after the 9 mile point when the half and full courses split all illusions of wanting to do the full marathon evaporated (along with gallons of my sweat leaving me covered in salt). I couldn’t have been more grateful that I only had 4 miles to go, and those poor folk had to face 17 more miles!
After 1 hour and 52 mins of running I raced across the finish line, stumbled into the arms of lovely volunteers who hung a finishers medal around my neck, removed my timing chip for me, and handed me bottled water.
Memory is a fantastic thing. I groaned for three days after the race as I tried to sit/stand or climb stairs, but as soon as the pain faded I remembered the sense of accomplishment and started talking folks into the 3M Half Marathon in January. So who’s in?
Better yet somehow I talked two friends into joining the madness with me. Well actually I talked three into it, but Gillian proved that she has more sense then the rest of us combined and decided against it in the end. We spent Saturday night in a hotel 0.3 miles from the Alamo (thank you Trang you brilliant woman), woke up to a 6am wake up call, stumbled into my fancy new socks and then to the starting line, and KA-BOOM cannons exploded in front of the Alamo. Forget some piddely little shot-gun start, this is Texas!
13 miles is a looooong way. We went through poor neighborhoods covered in litter, rich neighborhoods with historic homes, back and forth over the river walk, through downtown twice, through the Mission state historic park, and ended in the Alamo Dome. When I was in England I ran 13 miles with my Dad and had the insane idea that it wasn’t so bad and that I could do a full one. At little after the 9 mile point when the half and full courses split all illusions of wanting to do the full marathon evaporated (along with gallons of my sweat leaving me covered in salt). I couldn’t have been more grateful that I only had 4 miles to go, and those poor folk had to face 17 more miles!
After 1 hour and 52 mins of running I raced across the finish line, stumbled into the arms of lovely volunteers who hung a finishers medal around my neck, removed my timing chip for me, and handed me bottled water.
Memory is a fantastic thing. I groaned for three days after the race as I tried to sit/stand or climb stairs, but as soon as the pain faded I remembered the sense of accomplishment and started talking folks into the 3M Half Marathon in January. So who’s in?
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