1:50:15.9

Yes, that is the amount of time it took me to finish running 13.1 miles yesterday morning. Please permit me to share a little bit of the adventure of running the half marathon.

The morning started for me at 5:20 AM. I woke up, got dressed, and headed out to the finish line, where a lot of school buses were waiting to take all the runners up to the starting point. I was on one of the first buses that made it up to the starting line, so I had to wait for about an hour, in temperatures of about 45 degrees, as the rest of the runners were shuttled up.

Finally, we all started to get in line for the race. Oh, did I mention that there were over 2,100 people running this race? This meant that we took up about a quarter of a mile of the two lane road, packed with people ready to start the race. As always, there were a few stragglers. That meant that we finally were in line, ready, set, and headed off at 7:15 AM.

Want to know what it's like to run in the mountains? Just think of running and seeing some beautiful scenes such as this one, which is from the route that I ran.
Running in the mountains has its advantages. On this particular course, most of the running is downhill. The topography of the run is rather interesting, and I can truly say that I was thankful for a good portion of the run to be downhill.

My goal was to complete the race in about 1 hour 45 minutes. As I ran, I had to stop on a couple of occasions to stretch out some muscles that threatened to tighten up. While this may have slowed my time a bit, as well as one stretch where I simply had to walk for a few minutes, I still managed to make it to the finish line, where Carrie was watching and waiting. She spied me, called out, and snapped a quick picture. Too bad this man in front of her had to scoot over right as she did.

But, as you can see, I did finish. I cannot put into words how good it felt to be done, and to be on this side of the finish line. The final stretch of the run consisted of about 1 1/2 miles of straight running, where I could see the finish line ahead, but for some reason, it just never seemed to get closer. So to finally be able to stand idly by and point to the sign felt really good!

Of course, there were prizes for the winners. I do have to say that I didn't come close to winning anything. I finished 43rd in my age and gender group, and looking at the overall standings, I was 414th out of over 2,100 people. This means I met my other goal, to finish in the top 1/4 of all the racers. These were the prizes going out to the top three in each age category. And I thought Kokopeli was a much more southwestern symbol!

As I report all this the day after, I have to say that it felt good to go home and sit down for a while. I made myself get up and keep moving around so that my muscles wouldn't be quite so sore today. I'm glad I did, since today proved to be a full day. Wouldn't you know it, but we had a picnic to go to with some fellow Christians, and the place just happened to be the park right next to the starting line. This gave me the opportunity to go and pose by the start line in a much less intimidating way.

So now I can say that I have completed a half-marathon. Believe it or not, we're already looking for the next one to run, and I'm already trying to convince Carrie that she could at least walk the course! But I want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers, and support. Here's looking to the next big race! Thanks be to God for surviving the first!