TOU Half Marathon

If you refer back to my blog about a year and a half ago, you will see a post that was titled something like, "My last half marathon".  Well....I don't even know what to say about that.  I really thought that was the last one.  I guess you can never say never.  I really don't love to run.  And I thought I would try my hand at other events.  Somehow (peer pressure from Shawn saying, "If you do it, I'll do it"), I got myself roped into another 13.1 miles.  While I was signing up, I signed Ira up too and then texted him and told him he was running the TOU (SURPRISE!).  I think Shawn and Yuri had a similar story.  Shawn and I did our first Triathlon in June, and decided that was the way to go - not all this running.  But...we were already signed up for this.  SOOOO...none of us trained for this race like we intended to at first.  We did train, but we got exercise in lots of different forms - not just running.  We decided we could either drop out, or we could go and not be in any hurry.  We could walk the whole thing if we wanted to.  We were hoping for a time of around 3.5 hours.  Turns out that all that other exercise still helped.  This was Yuri's first race, and she did awesome.  She had decided not to do it because of a bum knee.  Then the night before, she was in. Shawn, who thought he would walk most of it, did awesome.  Ira, who hardly trained in any form - did awesome.  As for me....lets just say I got under 3 hours (remember my goal was 3.5) - so I was happy with it...considering.

And today????  Well, we can hardly walk - hips, knees, feet, calves.  You know...all the things that 13 miles of pounding can do to a poor old body! :)

I have to say tho, that this year we stuck around for awhile when we were done.  I watched as people came in at 4+ hours.  Many of them walking, some barely running.  I was so inspired by those people.  Those fast winners are impressive too - but those who obviously struggled all the way were truly an inspiration.  They were out doing something that they probably never thought they could do.  And yesterday, they did it!  Every runner out there has their own story of why they are there, and what keeps them going when their bodies hit that "runners wall".  But those who kept going hour after hour - they are inspirational.