Elite!

…if only for a moment.

Today was the Tacoma Narrows Half Marathon.  Almost the entire race is within 3 miles of my house at all times.  Today’s training schedule had me running 13 miles.  Perfect. Only not really.  The Tacoma Narrows Half is WAY too expensive for a half marathon, $85 or $90 if you register last minute (like I nearly always do).  So I did not register.  It is painful knowing there is a race going on right outside your door…

The Tacoma Narrows was my first half marathon in 2008.  Wow! 2 years ago!  My how far I have come since then!  My time was a whopping 2:06.33.  Not too shabby but I thought I was going to DIE! I gave it everything I had!  Today’s 13.11 miles I came in at 2:02, for a training run! I feel like I have come a long way since then! 

RED came over to do the 13 with me.  We decided to bandit the race.  Now before you start hating on me hear me out…

The Hubs dropped us off at a point about 4 miles in to the race.  We ran off the course about 2 miles before coming back to the paved trail where we headed along the race course, with NO racers in sight.  We ran along at a nice clip (I don’t have the splits, G. Money was fighting some serious Garmin Gremlins so I am going off of RED’s Nike Plus) and I kept looking back, expecting to see the elites heading towards us.

We came across the first water/Gu station and the volunteers got all excited and ready for the runner’s…as me and RED came closer the looks on their faces were priceless. I am sure they were thinking, “Wow! These girls are first? But they aren’t running very fast!” We told them were weren’t participants then we joked about being the winners. They laughed and we carried on.  It was fun to run up on the people waiting for the racers. For a moment in time I was an elite! I felt what it could be like to lead the pack! To be in first place! To be awesome! To have people on your heels and to be running from the others~! It was awesome. For only a second. Then I was back to reality at my 9:18 pace.  Tired. Bum tightening up. Thirsty.  And just average. Oh well, we had a good time kidding around with the volunteers along the course and they didn’t seem to care that we were bandits.  We were far enough ahead that it didn’t really matter.  At one point we were running straight down the middle of the street. I blame that on RED.  We decided that probably wasn’t the coolest thing to do and got back to the side of the street.

We came to a point where the course headed DOWN to to downtown. If we continued I knew we would have to run UP in order to get home so we veered off the course, telling the cop  manning the intersection, “We are taking a shortcut to the finish! Don’t tell!” I’m not sure but what he believed us…

We headed toward home with about 5 miles left.  With 4ish left we had to make an emergency pit stop at home…nature calls. What can I say?  We headed back out with our 4 miles left.  We both were feeling really good. It was a perfect day for a run; misty, sprinkling and raining at times with temps around 60.  You can’t ask for much better long-run weather!

Here we are after the run, soaking wet and smiling:

And just to ensure that RED hates me and for your viewing enjoyment, here is a picture of us before the Tacoma Narrows Half in 2008:

 

Wow!  I can see a difference! I have definitely slimmed up and shed about 20 pounds!

I hope in another 2 years I can look back and see even more of an improvement!  It really makes it all worth it!

 

Today we had a good run! I’m getting to the Meat and Potatoes of Portland Marathon training!!

Today I am grateful for:

A great running buddy and friend in RED! It was pretty cool to run 13.11 miles with her today, on our 2 year anniversary of my first half!

A nice visit with the father-in-law, who came in town for LB’s birthday!