4:10:21

I completed the half marathon!

With all the horrendous weather reports, I woke up to partly cloudy skies and dry weather. It had rained over night, but seemed to be past for now. They did start the race 45 minutes early hoping to skip the second wave of storms coming later in the day. It was actually a beautiful morning, with the sun breaking through the clouds just as we reached the top of the first hill and could look down on downtown.



The experience was amazing! They had bands playing every mile or so, plus the spectators were a sight to see themselves. It felt like a carnival! The first few miles flew by and we were hitting a good pace.



The course looped around on itself and when I hit the approximately 3 mile mark, I could see both the people who were behind me at the one mile mark (on the overpass) and the faster runners going underneath me at the 10 mile mark:



The rain did start during mile 9. It started light, but slowly started coming down more heavily. In the middle of mile 10, the police recommended we take cover for a severe storm. We stopped for a while in a warehouse (actually, you can almost see the warehouse we stopped at the picture above near the stop sign on the left). Here we are taking cover:



After a few minutes, we didn't think the storm was that severe and kept going. With wet shoes and the inclination to keep our heads down to avoid the rain, I was feeling the last few miles hard. Then a police officer told us a second wave of storms was coming and they were talking about closing the course at that time. We had better hurry if we wanted to finish. With that extra motivation, my friend and I found our pace again and finished the race strong.

It was a great day that ended with a foot massage and my favorite ice cream. My legs are a bit sore today, but am feeling good and proud of myself.

I am already thinking ahead to next year. I definitely want to do this again another time. But I need another challenge. I'm thinking of joining this group for the half marathon next year: