Half Marathon?

Who would have thought that my husband or I would ever be prepared to run a half marathon? Not us! But we have been disciplining ourselves with training in preparation for a FULL marathon in October (something we are not nearly ready for!) So when we heard there was going to be a 1st annual half marathon in our home town, we decided to go for it! It actually worked out to our advantage because our marathon training has us scheduled to run a 12 mile run that day, so this was only adding another 1.1 miles. What's 1.1 miles right? Ha! After 12 miles, 1.1 is A LOT!!!

Here are Sam and I "pre-race" time.

The Yakima Half Marathon was a Beast of a race! It was known as "Hot and Hilly" which is the only way to sum it up! Unfortunately, it had a late morning start which only added to the heat problem. And it didn't help that it happened to be the hottest day of the entire summer! There was extreme elevation gain in the first 5 miles, leaving us runners exhausted with 3/4 of the race still to go! And the course follows a very open, tree-less area giving us ZERO shade! It was brutal! And then, a big error on the race set-up, was that there were very few water/aid stations! Fortunately, Sam and I wore our hydration belts. I don't know what I would have done without it!

My goal for a half marathon was 2:15. That was a goal for a "normal" half marathon. From what I am told, this was no "normal" half marathon. So I was beyond pleased with my 2:24 race finish! Actually, I am just pleased that I finished!

A friend of mine ran it and compared it to the Portland Full Marathon. She thinks that the full marathon (which she ran last year) may have been easier than Yakima's 1/2 marathon. I found that very interesting!

Overall, it was a great day! And I get to finish it up today with a 90 minute massage!

Sam also had a good race. He is a bit more hard-core than myself when it comes to running. His goal was to break 2 hours. He came extremely close with a time of 2 hours 1 minute!

Now we get to rest for a day or 2 and then it is back to training for the Marathon!

Ugh! I don't want to think about it!