How It Went

Meh.

I'll give you more of a play-by-play (play-by mile?) another time, but for now I'll just give you the basics.

For those of you who don't live here, you should know that 90-degree days in Seattle are as rare as hen's teeth. But Sunday was the second of two in a row. When I got up at 4:30 in the morning, the temperature was already 68 degrees and it was already almost light. Which mean that the sun had a good 2.5 hours to do its work before the 7:00 start time.

I stuck with the 9:10 pace group for the first 3 miles, then began to realize a two-hour half marathon just wasn't in the stars for me that day. So I retooled my goals: no walking during the first half of the race, and try to finish in under 2.5 hours.

I achieved both of them. But it was rough. I came in at 2:27:45, having walked most of the hills in the last half (which took me 10 minutes longer than the first half did).

I'm currently vascillating between disappointment/embarrassment/shame at not having come even close to accomplishing my original goal, and pride that I finished a half marathon in 90-degree heat (having never even run at all, much less 13.1 miles, in weather that hot).

The worst part is that a friend of mine, who is a couple years younger than I am, decided the day before the race to sign up. He made it in 1:52. Whereas I, who have been training for and talking about this for months, took 35 minutes longer to finish. Before I found that out, the heat was a much bigger consolation/excuse. But he ran the same race I did and hardly seems to have been affected. I am of course happy for him, but still...

The upside is that, as far as I can remember, this is my best half marathon time yet. Either way, I think I'll sign up for the Seattle Half Marathon this week. It's Thanksgiving weekend. There's no WAY it'll be 90 degrees.