half marathon is a start

I ran the McAllen half marathon last weekend. The toughest part of the race was that the entire course had maybe six people cheering. That's not six groups, that's six people. This is a good lesson in getting ready for some day doing a full iron -- you don't have spectators helping you along at 9 p.m. I gave myself permission to walk for awhile once I hit approximately half way mark - 7 miles, but at 7 miles, I still had energy so told myself no stopping other than at mile markers, but I swore I was going to stop at 8 miles. The distance between 7 and 7 1/2 miles seemed to take forever, with a turn around at 7 1/2 back to the 7 mile mark, which was also the 8 mile mark. Funny how going the same route twice makes it shorter, so while I was set on stopping at 8 miles, next mile mark was 9 miles. ..then my knee started to hurt. ok, 10, if i can just make 10 miles, my knee will hold, ouch, ouch, ouch.

When I saw the 10 mile mark, I did stop to shake out my knee - but 20 seconds into shaking my knee out, a woman with a disability says to me, "come on, keep going, and waived for me to run with her." oh boy, how could I not keep running with the woman with a disability was doing better than me. I ran with her, even though it was killing me. My knee hurt like heck -- note to self, I need to work on some knee strengthening before a longer race. I tried to chitchat with the woman to keep my mind off the pain, but she didn't really understand English. I don't know if other people are like me, but chatting when I'm hitting the done point helps me keep going. Inspiration by this woman was not enough and when we hit the 11 mile mark, I could not keep up anymore. Just then a guy that was a chatter came up to me and had some encouraging words. We chatted and cheered the rest of the way and made it to the finish line in under 2 hours. barely, but under two hours. Ouch, but I was done and the aching knees were worth making it under 2 hours. Not such a great pace, but good enough for second in my age group given it was south Texas.