Southern Footprints Half Marathon

My laptop has finally thrown in the towel so I'm updating from the iPhone. Not the most ideal but I hope you'll bear with me until the laptop situation is rectified.

I ran my second race of the season today - the Southern Footprints Half Marathon. This race could also have been called the Wizard of Oz Half Marathon. The wind was CRAZY!! I'm not a big person and there were gusts that had me working not to blow over. It was mostly a cross wind until mile 12 when we turned toward the lake again and it was head on. I wanted to cry here, and stop. Winds stir up the demons in my pysche. On the bike and on the run nothing makes me doubt myself more. I was proud of myself today though because I beat those demons down and kept at it. I kept repeating what Coach Mary said in her race plan - "It's SUPPOSED to hurt!". I even managed to pass two people in the section with the highest wind. One I passed going uphill(!!) about 500m from the finish line. I had been targeting this girl for half the race! That was very satisfying. :-)

At the turn into the finishing chute all of my awesome friends were there cheering me on (the one advantage to being the slowest of the group - lots of support at the finish) and making so much noise the announcer even commented about my fan club. My mom and Dad and niece came out
too which was awesome. I love that she's interested in racing and watching me race.

All of this lead up to say that I finished in 2:07:43. A PB!! I'm very excited about that because the conditions made this race SO HARD but I was able to gut it out. I was still bottom half of my age group but it was a small field (152 total runners) and I learned to stop worrying about what everyone else was doing.

Other than the lack of water stations (I was so dehydrated by the end) this was a great race. I like the timing of it so early in the season and the course is really nice going along the lake, into the national park and through trails. The wind sucked and the rollers on the trail
part were more difficult than expected but definitely a two thumbs up race. The buffet lunch
afterwards was inside the host hotel and we had a chance to hang out and chat and cheer for
our good friend Dawn who won overall female - she is a STAR!

Well, this has taken an inordinate amount of time to type up on the phone so I'll end it here. I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend and good luck to all the people I know both in blogland and in real life doing Boston on Monday. I will be tracking you all and sending speedy thoughts for a fabulous race. Cheers!