Approaching the starting line - how cool is it that he got his own bib number and everything??
Toddler mayhem! This was before he looked back to check out the field of competition and took a nose dive on the track.
Showing off his hard-earned medal. He always wants to have it with him.
After Charlie's race, we went home for our big carb dinner - pasta with chicken. Then it was up bring and early to make it to the starting line for my own race - my first half marathon. The anxiety was running high, thanks to the reputation of the course - the 15K is infamous for the constant elevation change, and the half marathon they added this year included all of that course and more - two trips across the Cincinnati river. Those bridges are killer, and I know that thanks to my Pig training.
I decided to run with the 9:45 pace group, which would give me a finishing time of about 2:07, a few minutes under my 2:10 goal. It felt slow, but I forced myself to stick with them because I just knew that the course was going to be a killer and I didn't want to start out too strong and then falter at the end. I lost them somewhere around mile 6 - just kept running and didn't look back. And it felt good. I ended up finishing in 2:02 (9:20/mile) - two minutes slower than my super unrealistic "someday it would be nice" goal of sub-2 hours. I feel like I could have done better - if I hadn't started out so slow, I could have made up those two minutes somewhere along the way. There's always next year!
Post Heart Half Marathon. Don't I just look thrilled to be standing out in the rain?
The runners posing with their medals.
26.2 up next - bring on the Flying Pig!
