i am excited to report that my goals of ‘running the whole way and finishing with a smile’ were met (and then some!) at the half-marathon in charlotte on saturday. i ran it in a quite-slow-but-steady 2 hours and 11 minutes (placing 176/313 females, yeah!), which is exactly a 10:00/mile pace. the hardest part was that i had to continually tell the unreasonable but very persistent competitive voices in my head to shut the hell up and let everyone pass me in the beginning. meaning, i forced myself to go as slow as i possibly could for the first 7 or 8 miles or so. however, by mile 10 or 11, i was so excited about how good i felt that i was singing along to my iPod (yes, i took my baby along for the race — i don’t think i could have done it otherwise) and people were probably staring. and at that point i started passing lots of people who looked very burned out or were walking. which was fun. in a mean and competitive sort of way, but still fun.
anyway, so i loved the experience. in fact, i just signed up for another one in april. because i’m crazy that way.
i also have to mention that josh ran the whole thing in a phenomenal 1:27 or something (6:40 pace!) coming in 18th overall out of hundreds of runners, and third in his age group. he was nice and waited for me at the end.
we also did lots of other fun things in charlotte: we drank margaritas and went to the dale earnhardt headquarters (although not in that order). and i had the best burrito (it had scallops in it!) ever.
it was a lovely weekend.
and now it’s back to lab . . .
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