The Full Story

(Pardon the super lengthy post, but you know, if you run a Half Marathon, you might feel the need for a Marathon post.)

You want to know what kind of friends I have? When I tell them, "I had such a great time running 13.1 miles. You should try it too." They say, "Sign me up."

So this year, 6 of my nearest and dearest ran the race with me. Cheri - the original instigator - ran again. Heidi had already ran a Half this year but decided to join us and make it two. But the rest of the group? All new to the Half Marathon experience.

The night before the race, we gathered the crew for a Carb-Loading potluck dinner. I give you, the racers:

I served my guests some Acai (pronounced Ah-sigh-ee) shots. All perfectly legal, even in the Mormon community. It's an antioxidant loaded berry drink. That can't get you loaded.

Bruce finished us off.

Jenny made sure we were properly carb loaded with this gorgeous chocolate cake. With berries. And whipped cream.

It was a great night. We all parted ways, hoping for a good night's rest.

And met up early the next morning. We rode together so as not to inconvenience any of our spouses and children. Here we are all right before the race. This picture reminds me of the last line in Hoosiers. (I love these guys.)

On to the race itself. It was cold - 40s and windy. I ran in long sleeve tee, cold compression half-zip, running tights, running skirt, and a head band. It was harder than last year*. A lot harder. After the first 5 miles I thought I was done for. Thankfully, Heidi ran with me and helped me stick with it. Mercifully, at about the 8 mile mark I got my second wind. By the last mile my second wind was long gone, but I still managed to finish under 2 hours. 1:56:33. I might have mentioned that before. The Kansas City Half is such a gorgeous run. We ran through some beautiful parts of the city.

Mark and the kids came to see my finish. You might wonder why I am not in this finish line picture. Unfortunately, the camera was on timer and my husband, not the designated camera handler of the family, thought the beeping meant it was out of batteries. Instead of pics of me, we had a series of random shots of strangers.

And this one awkward picture of me.

Once I figured out the timer-setting issue, I posed for this fake picture. Rumor has it some friends got pictures of me running, in the actual race. Rest assured, I will post these as soon as I get my grubby mits on them.

And how did my team do?

Jason beat me by a solid 5 minutes. Without really training.

Heidi rocked the race by finishing just under 2 hours, thereby earning her PR. She's awesome.

Bruce, who also barely trained, ran the race in a very respectable 2:30. He was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day and weekend according to his wife.

Jamey and Tiffany beat their goal time by 15 minutes. 15 minutes! And had a great time doing it. They were hardly winded.

Cheri beat last year's time by a mile, and also ran injury free. Turns out running without a stress fracture is a breeze.

The only husband and wife team this year. Mark has informed me that this may not be the case next year, as he is thinking about throwing his hat into the ring.

The thrill of victory:

My cheering section.

Final picture of the day (Heidi was absent from the pic, but not from our hearts.)

We all agreed: Can't wait for next year!

*I failed to mention earlier, that the day before the race I came down with a sore throat. And then after the race, I was in bed with a nasty head cold for a solid day and a half. I say this to because when the race is way hard than it should be, it is important to come up with solid excuses beyond your control as to why this is so.