Monday, July 28, 2008

1/2 Marathon Blooper


super hero pose before the race
me, lucas and katie

at the end...smiling through the disappointment

Well, as many of you know this year I entered and trained for my first BIG race, a half marathon with my friend Katie. The day of the race was yesterday, July 27. It started off well, with us arriving well stretched to the start 30 minutes before time. The plaza where everything began was crowded with more than the expected 10,000 participants!!! It was insane! We were both excited by the hustle of it all and decided to make a quick trip to the bathroom before things got started. As we patiently waited in a line of easily more than 30 people we kept an eye out to see when the line up was beginning. Not noticing any change in the crowd we continued in the waiting process.

45 minutes later we were finally leaving the indescribable port-a-potty experience and still waiting, with no luck, to see some semblance of people moving in the direction of the starting line. Finally it happened, so we joined the crowd blaming the 30 min delay on latin society.

As we're preparing to start, I begin to get my running music ready on my ipod. Katie and I are feeling really good about our run. The crowd is cheering as people push closer to the starting line. With emotions high we're off to the start and all's well. We are able to set our pace easily and avoid being knocked down by the mob. We were doing really well and feeling good about it all. As we are coming up on the 10k mark, our halfway point, we're still feeling good and pumped up but we notice that the course starts looking a little odd. Turns out that we had somehow missed the call for the 21k amongst the more than 10,000 people and the potty line and started with the 10k instead. I cannot say how disheartened and straight up mad we were. I mean we trained hard for this race and at the end of it all we ran the wrong one!! We did jump over the cones at the end separating the 21k and 10k, thinking if we switched lanes the course would keep going(not so), so we did get medals for the 21k. I don't feel bad about that though, I mean after all that's what we trained for!

Sadly, we have no one but ourselves to blame for this mishap, I wish we did, it'd sure would make me feel better. I am thankful to say we had a safe and good run and I feel blessed for the health and opportunity to have been able to do it. I guess it's just all part of life and you learn from it, right? We did however run the full 21k distance last Wed. So in our defense, we have run a 1/2 marathon, even if it wasn't official. All-in-all it was a fun, latin experience and I pushed myself harder than I ever have with my running. So 10k, 21k. We started it, we finished it, it was unforgettable and who knows maybe the next time we'll actually run in right one?