13.1 Miles Later...

Today I ran my first ever half-marathon! To date, it's the longest continuous run I've ever completed. If you remember from this post, I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. Injuries to my shins kept me from training for two weeks, so I felt very under-prepared.

Needless to say, I was up this morning at 4:30 for a breakfast consisting of a toasted bagel, an Oddwalla bar (flavor: banana-nut-something), and a lot of water. Power food, baby! At 5:15, Scott and I drove up to the gateway, got on trax, and made it up to the legacy bridge at around 6:55. Mind you, the race started at 7:00.

Well, we needed to use the restroom and drop off our gear bags and the like, so we headed out to do that and before you know it we hear "three... two... one... BANG!!!" The race had started.

No biggie. We took our time and started about 10 minutes after everyone else.

To make a long race-story short, I felt really great for the first 8 miles! Oh man... it felt as if I'd run 4 miles. Really. It was so weird, but great! I decided to pick up the pace for the last 5 and still felt good till about mile 10. Armed with the knowledge that I only had three miles left, though, I blazed ahead. The low point of the entire thing was on State Street where you make a final climb up the hill to the capitol. UGGGH! Death to your legs! After that, though, you're gifted with a long, downhill coast to the finish line.

I ended up finishing it in 1 hour and 41 minutes! That amounts to 7:45 mile splits! My goal was to finish in under two hours, so I was really happy with my performance.

Enjoy these pictures from throughout the day!

My family came up to cheer for me! Nothing gives you that rush you need like loved ones cheering you on. Oh, how I love them!

Shan took this picture and many more. I felt really good here. (about mile eight)

Thumbs up and a smile! A good sign, generally speaking.


Danny got this shot of me in the final chute to the finish line. I was blazing and nearly dead. Like a zombie on fire.


Creamies! One of the finer free treats at the end of the race! I ate like five.


Scott and I proudly displaying our "Everybody Wins" medals. :) Participation prizes ROCK!

-Barry