Half Marathon

So I decided that I was crazy enough to do a half marathon. I sort of trained starting about 3 weeks before but that was more just to make sure I could do it not so much to "train" for the event if you understand my meaning. I told Mom I would give a descriptive stride by stride or play by play of what happened. Sadly I do not have any pictures so you will have to rely on my weak descriptions of this event.

So I arrived with my friend who was running with me and we had about 2 minutes before the race started so we had to grab our timechips and then all of a sudden everybody just started running and we got pushed forward, it was kind of crazy. The first few kilometers were crazy because everybody was bunched up together up tight so it was hard. My friend is a rather outgoing type so he was hi-fiveing all the volunteers along the trail. Anyways, after the first two kilometres we finally got spaced out and then my stomach was making some strange noises, it made some gurgling sounds because my digestive system was undergoing repairs I think but anyways, it was hurting. The nice thing was that the entire race was through the river valley so it was really beautiful.

At first I thought I wasn't doing very well because a couple really old guys started to pass me. The thing about runners that I should mention is that they're all really nice and they always say "good job" or "keep it up" when they pass you, some of them anyways because I don't really do that. After these old guys started passing me I tried to keep up but I couldn't. After that around kilometer number 10 there was this old lady that passed me carrying around a water bottle and that's when I said OK something has got to change here because being passed by old man is one thing but being passed by old women that is a different matter entirely. Luckily after a couple more kilometers I was able to pass her which was fortunate for my ego and pride.

Finally towards the finish line about a kilometer away I heard somebody breathing very loudly behind me and slowly catching up to me. I was glancing over my shoulder but I couldn't see anybody finally when the breathing got super close and I was getting kind of scared like a deer being pursued by a wolf a little 16 year old girl ran past me and my ego took another shot to the groin. I tried to catch her at the finish line but she was too fast. Finally after 21.2 km of battling old men, women and teenage girls I finally crossed the finish line.

Lucky for me the young teenage girl I talked about got a 30 second head start so overall I actually beat her, thank goodness for that. The run was fun, my time was 1 hour and 45 minutes. I got 25th overall and third in my age group. That's the stride by stride report.

Beej