Half Marathon

A couple of months ago Jon suffered an overuse injury that has been really slow to heal.  Unfortunately he was already signed up for the Green Bay Cellcom Marathon that runs next week.  So back then, I committed to take over his run for him if he couldn't run it, but I was only prepared to run the half.  The rules say that it would disqualify the time, and you would get the finisher medal for the race you signed up for (since that is what they were planning on you running) but otherwise it wasn't a big deal.  If the half hadn't been full, we could have switched his registration to a half, but it was already full.  So anyway, it was a big commitment for me.  I had formed and signed up a team for the relay in September, but running any sort of marathon was not in my mind's eye at the time.  

Since then, however, Jon has worked up to walk/running, and was able to complete a 20 training activity last weekend in around 5 hours.  So, he is confident that he can use this strategy to run his own race.  Therefore, I am not needed to run, but I did all the training for it... So I decided to run my own half today.  

My phone died at mile 12, which besides being tired and low on energy, I was sort of bored too.  So my last mile sort of sucked.  There was also a crazy head wind on the way back from Kaukauna that slowed me down quite a bit.  I never thought that all the cheering people and the hubbub of spectators who don't know me actually did anything for my running, but I am convinced now that they play a pretty big role in helping you get to the finish.  I think they might have helped me hit my goal of 3 hours and 30 minutes too.  

So in the end, I ran all the way to Kaukauna and back! Which is incredible.  The trail I took goes right past the school I went to for 6th-8th grade... (although now its an elementary school...) I remember them making us run the mile in gym.  I hated those days.  So many sprained ankles and windless hours... If I finished the mile, it was like 30-45 minutes...  It is so crazy to me that I can do it in 15 now... and that I literally ran from where I live now in Appleton, all the way to that school in Kaukauna, and back!  I'm proud, and sore, and probably not much of a long distance runner... I mean, Jon did this in an hour and 39 minutes...  

I'm glad I did it, I would do it for him again, but I don't think I will be signing up for more halfs (or fulls...).