Success! Maybe?

My fifth half is complete!!! On Sunday morning I ran the "Halfathon" from Madeira Beach, FL to Largo, FL in 2 hours 10 minutes and 58 seconds! That put me at exactly 10-minute miles for the entire 13.1-mile race. Goal Reached! Success! Except...

Here's the catch: official race times have my chip-time the same as gun-time, even though it took me about 10 seconds to cross the start line at the beginning of the race. So, my official time was 2:11:09... averaging a 10:01-minute mile. DOH!

Oh well, I'll call it a win anyway. It was my fastest time by about 7 minutes, and it felt really good! I enjoyed the whole thing, and never felt too tired. I even talked to a couple of fellow racers along the way. I'm actually really surprised I was able to run 10-minute miles and hold conversations. I even ran so fast by the finish line that Vick didn't see me! It took us 6 minutes to find each other at the end because he was still staring down the final stretch wondering where I was. I was stumbling around at the finish trying to decide which I wanted to do first- look for Vick or eat. (Surprisingly, I chose to look for Vick... followed by an intense gorging)

Unfortunately, Left Calf was really unhappy with the whole ordeal. About 2 minutes after I stopped running, it froze up. It feels like thousands of ice picks if I move it wrong. MRI tomorrow night.

Back to happier things! I got to spend two and a half days with Vick! It was so great to be with him, especially since he hadn't had a single day off in two weeks. It was like a mini vacation together. We got pretty lucky about how everything went, too. Between the layovers, the two hotel rooms, the rental car, and the race, I figured something would have to go terribly wrong. But the worst thing that happened was a 2-hour delay getting home. No big deal! We were still at home by 10pm on Sunday.

One of the coolest parts of this race was that I was randomly assigned number 726. That's my birthday! I wonder how often that happens. And we stayed in hotel room 515 in Tampa, which is Vick's birthday! What a serendipitous weekend!

I'd do it again in a heart beat. Don't tell Left Calf.