A Little Half

Sunday was the Rotary Half Marathon. I had planned to make it my steady run of 13 miles at around 1:30 for a time. Whatever the reason, add together a bunch of runners, a race number, timing chip, and a cool day and I can’t switch off the competitive part of my brain. After running about ten minutes though, my body shut it down right quick. Was it a lack of speed work, too much long stuff, tired from the night before, too much ice cream?

I saw at the beginning Darren Mealing and Danny Groening were a ways ahead so thought I would catch and run with them for a bit. That was the brain again telling the body to do what it was not willing to do. It seemed easy at first but I figured by the time I actually caught up to them I wouldn’t be able to say anything anyways from being out of breath so that was another reason to watch them fade away in front of me. The volunteers at every corner were young kids with lots of enthusiasm. They were great.

I basically settled into a manageable pace albeit faster than I wanted to go but not so fast that I’d be dead for two days after. The second half of this race does undulate quite a bit and this year being my second one I knew what to expect. I finished the last three kilometres faster than the other eighteen with a finish time of 1:24, four minutes slower than last year but satisfied with a hard, steady pace. Congratulations to Graeme Wilson who won in an impressive time of 1:11.

Most importantly, I felt great the next day and the one after that for my first trip to Chuckanut Mountain since a year and a half ago. That’s another blog entry though.

Rotary Half Marathon and Ekiden Relay