The Second Half

Hi Y'all!

Or Mom anyway.

*blows dust off blog*

Ahem.

This is hard. I don't even know how to start so here goes...

Here is me and my good friend, Cheryl. She came to my fair city for the first time. I have had the opportunity to visit her a few times now so it was fun to have her come here this time.

We did our usual spa and shopping on Saturday which was, and always is, so much fun. I swear my fashion sense goes up a notch every time we shop.

But this time we also added a new activity, one that we have been talking about doing for a very long time.

We ran together.

A half marathon to be exact.

Cheryl is a veteran half marathoner so we agreed we would run at my pace, you know so I could remain conscious. My goal was to beat my first half time from 2.5 years ago of 2:22:29.

Here we are at 3km (all photos courtesy of Cheryl's husband, Tim) and I was on pace and feeling great. Cheryl was discussing our full marathon training while I ran beside her. I think she may have been having some reaction to the Regina water, poor girl.

She told me not to talk, just listen right about this point too. Something about my protesting violently taking up too much energy for the remaining 18k.

What was I to do? She is the veteran.

Things were going great. At 7k we passed Jay waiting to pick up his leg of the relay. I was feeling great!

At 14k, I was starting to slow. The day dawned sunny and they were calling for 30 degree heat. At this point the temp started to climb and I started to slow considerably.

I knew it would happen, and was prepared. I had hoped I could push myself harder during a race than I had during my training runs. I could not.

Jay passed us at about 16.5k then waited for us to go by at his finish point (17.5k into the race). I made a sad face as I went by. I was hurting and I was very happy to see him.

Our plan was for him to leave from there to go pick meet my mom to pick up the boys - a 1.5 hour drive. He didn't. He called mom and said he would be a bit.

He met us at the finish.

When I saw him I yelled, "I love that man more than words can say!"

He came to run into the finish with us. He knew I was hurting and it means so much.

And Cheryl was fabulous. She didn't judge or push, she just ran beside me. Good friends. I got 'em and I know it.

I came in at 2:22:09. Yes, that's right. A whopping 20 seconds faster than my first half. Part of me is happy. I did it in the heat. It was hard but I did it anyway. The other part of me is saying why didn't you just push a little bit harder?

I was reminded by another good friend that given that I felt sick for the rest of the day and the day after that I should stop being ridiculous. I told you I have good friends.

(As an aside, the very next day Fall arrived. Murphy is a complete asshole.)

That friend is on the left - Terry-Lyn. She ran the half too. She was originally going to run with Cheryl and me but the girl is a hare and we decided she should run her own race, not held back by me.

She finished in 2:00:04. This was her first half marathon EVER. That time is killer and I am very proud of her (also green with envy but she knows that and we joke about it).

It was a great weekend and as always, I was sad when Cheryl had to leave. Until the next time, my friend. I look forward to it.

As for the race, I am very happy I did it. I wasn't sure I would attempt another one. I don't regret it. Even though I didn't quite meet my goal. What I did do though is run two more half marathons than I ever thought I would and that is something. Something rather huge.

I do have another goal though.

This time, I am not going to quit distance running altogether. I worked hard and sweated buckets of salt (I have the white stains on my hat to prove it) to get to the point of finishing a 21.1k race.

So this time, with no talk about whether or not I will do another half, I vow I will keep up my distances.

Because that sweat has to be worth at least that.