My First Half Marathon!
February 3rd, 2008
Emily and I just finished the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon. We made it! Despite some inclement weather, the run went really, really well. We finished in 2:09:57 (according to my watch), which means that we beat our goal of 10 minutes/mile. We kept a good pace through the whole race and were able to finish strong – we passed a ton of people in the last 2 miles. We had been training for this race for the last 2 months. Our training included running in the snow in Elkhart in sub-freezing temperatures and running in 80+ degree weather through the parks of Buenos Aires, Argentina. So we have been all over, but we have stuck to our training program and it paid off today.
The weather wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We were expecting rain so Emily and I made a run to Sports Basement yesterday to get some rain gear for the race. At the start of the run, the weather was fine, but the last 3-4 miles were pretty bad. As we ran along Great Ocean Blvd., the rain started coming down and there was a really strong headwind. But we fought through it and still made our time. Also, after we crossed the finish line, the sun came back out and we were able to warm up a little.
This was the farthest I have ever run in my life. Distance running isn’t very easy for me, and I am proud that I was able to do it. Finishing a 1/2 marathon was one of my goals for the year. Now I am one step closer to another item on my lifelist – Finish a Marathon, although I have a lot more training to do to get there…
Update: Race results are now online. I finished 2859/4691 overall and beat Emily by 1 second!
[...] taking a short break after Emily and I ran the San Francisco Half Marathon, I am ready to start training for my next event. I have decided to be somewhat ambitious and do a [...]