Hit another running milestone today -- only figuratively, thankfully! -- as I completed my first HALF MARATHON. That's 13.1 miles...wow.
Ran the Two Cities Half Marathon in Fresno with Kim, her college friend, Laura, and Ann and Tim from Bridgeport. And, as we had at the Tioga Pass Run back in September, we had our own cheering section -- Missy, Lacey, and Mom also came over from Bridgeport.
The race started at 7:30 am, and Kim and I left the house to "run" there at 7:00.
But, of course, we couldn't take this TOO seriously...
...I mean, after all, a giant banana crossed the finish line before we did!
The course started on Friant in front of Woodward Park, turned up for a short out-and-back on Shepard, then went back out onto Friant to Willow before turning around, finishing in Woodward Park.
13.1 miles, and I was all smiles still, even once back in the park and almost to the finish.
Seriously, I felt great the entire time. Volunteers out on the course called out times at a lot of the mile markers, and I knew I was doing well when they called 9:30 at mile 1...my fastest training time has been about 9 minutes, 43 seconds a mile. Of course, I needed to be sure not to overdue it and bonk before the finish.
Besides having good friend Felicia Gomez at Pinnacle Training Systems coach me, I think running with so many people also helped, as I LOVE seeing people ahead, and trying to pick them off one-by-one...like this guy near the end.
I don't know why it's so darned fun running ahead of men, but it is...kind of reminds me of Little League when some older boys told me, "You throw like a boy!" Makes me all misty-eyed!
I finished at about 1:59:14, which put me just over 9 minutes per mile, though I still need to confirm my actual time. Kim came in shortly after, and did awesome!
Tim got in before me, of course, and we all greeted Ann when she arrived. She WON her age division in a 10K in Bishop just the day before!
Couples who run together, stay together...well, not necessarily on the course, but everywhere else!
The Finish line!!!
Runnin' buds! So glad Kim came over to run this with me!
Gotta get a silly pic, too, of course.
Sa-wheet.
When you know this is waiting at the end, why wouldn't you finish?!!!
A medal AND free beer at the end?! Now THIS is livin'! (Even if it is Lance's beer...eeewwww.)
With the race over, all that was left to do was swap war stories at the beer garden. The pay-off.
Lacey was a trooper, and hung out on Missy's shoes while the stories of all that had happened out on the course just got bigger and bigger.
So I finally found a place to rest and drink my beer.
Hmmmm...now we gotta pick our next race...we hear there's a cool Half Marathon in Vegas in early December...!
