Run for the Roses

I was feeling excited before the race, but I had no idea how crazy I looked!

Finished!  I look very relieved.

My first half marathon of the season was Sunday in Portland.  I ran with my running buddies Kim and Sabrina, and I've been looking forward to it for a long time!  We woke up early at our hotel, and met in the lobby at 6:15 (I had to be convinced of that time, I really wanted to meet at 6:00 because I am super anxious about being late.  I'm glad I did the race with logical, non-anxious about being late people).  We jogged to the start, at the Oregon Convention Center, which was about 1.4 miles away.  It was a nice way to get ready for a race, and the streets were totally deserted.  It was a nice morning, a little cold, but clear and looked promising in terms of warming up.  We arrived at the start line with time for everybody to go to the bathroom about 5 times, because it seems that being nervous about running makes you have to pee a million times.

I was wearing a tank top with my (thin) running jacket over it.  I really didn't want to be wearing the jacket, but I knew standing outside before the race was going to be too cold for just a tank top.  We started at 7:00, and I knew I was feeling good right away.  The only problem I had at first was I struggled with turning my runmeter app on when we started, so eventually I gave up, and decided I didn't need my splits.  I was disappointed at first, but I wanted to relax, and not struggle right at first with my iphone, so I'm glad I gave it up.  At mile 3 Sabrina's camelback burst (seriously!), and spilled her water all over her back.  She said at first that she thought she peed herself, and was a little concerned about her bladder control.  She didn't know what to do about the backpack, but luckily we saw Justin a few minutes later, and were able to ditch the backpack, and my jacket.  Justin was a primo cheerleader (along with his assistants, Ramona and Ruby).

After her backpack broke, Sabrina fell a little behind, so Kim and I continued to run without her : (  We ran along the water until we turned around and started back towards downtown Portland.  Running downtown was really fun, and the weather was perfect for running.  We passed Justin and the girls again (Ramona was holding a sign that said "Go Mama Go" a highly sophisticated joke about the play "Go Dog Go"), and then ran into the industrial part of the city.  Kim and I talked about how we were going to try to crank up the pace a little once we got to mile 10.  We reached an in and out part of the race at mile 9, and I always find those a little more difficult, watching people run past you going the "right" way is a little disheartening sometimes.  On the way back in the city though we saw the 2:15 pacers who were quite a bit behind us, which made us feel good.  We were aiming for a 2:15, so now we just had to stay ahead of them to get a better time than we expected.

Once we got to mile 10, we turned it on.  We played a game where we would choose someone ahead of us to "catch".  It made running faster than we were comfortable a little bit fun.  Around mile 12 we saw Justin and Sabrina's family, which was a real boost, because were were really struggling by then.  Kim and I were doing a pretty good job encouraging each other also.  There was a big "hill" at the end, which was the entrance to the big bridge we were crossing.  Kind of a hard time to tackle a steep hill, but once we got to the top we sprinted to the finish line.  We finished at a 2:05:15, which was a major PR for me.  It is 25 minutes faster than my last half-marathon!  It was a great race, and I'm happy to have my friends there to run with.  Now I'm going to aim for a sub-2:00 for the Rock and Roll Half marathon.  I love a good goal!