And I ran, I ran so far away - Kansas City Half-Marathon

Dark and early Saturday morning, Mitzi, Stacey and I headed down to Crown Center for the Waddell and Reed KC Half-Marathon. It was about 42 degrees when we left the house, so we were all layered up.

The race started at 7, and it was still dark and pretty darn cold. As soon as the sun came up, it warmed up a tiny bit, but was still chilly.

Stacey was the first of us to cross the finish line, at around 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Adam and the kids waited near the finish line to see us as we came around the last corner. There was quite a crowd.


The photo below shows some Randy Randoms coming around the corner. Adam tried to get a photo of me, but he had forgotten our camera, so he was using Eugene's, and it shut itself off right as I came around the corner.

That's fine by me, because they'll be professional photos online in a few days, but Adam was pretty upset that the camera pooped out.

There's Stacey coming around the corner. I was 10 minutes behind her. I was shooting for a finish at 2 hours and 30 minutes, but I finished at 2 hours and 20 minutes. I ran with Mitzi until about mile six, and then I went on ahead, to see how I could do. The route was great - scenic, weather was perfect, and I felt good as I kept up a pretty good pace for me.

When I got home, I uploaded my data to Nikeplus.com, and it said that one of my last miles was 8:09. That's really fast for me. Usually, on a long race, I'm somewhere between 10 and 11 minute miles.

Mitzi was 10 minutes behind me, looking strong as she finished. My legs are a little sore today, but not as bad as the day after I ran the full marathon. The worst part of the race was AFTER the finish line. I crossed the line, had to find an open spot to get the chip cut off my shoe, and then came to a dead stop in a giant crowd of runners who were waiting for food. The crowd wasn't moving at all. I had to get out of the mess, so I found an opening in the railing and just walked back up to where Adam and Eugene and the kids were. My belly was saying "I'm hungry" but my legs were saying "If you stand still, we start cramping, so keep moving."

Logistically, the end of the race wasn't set up very well. Too much of a bottleneck. I won't let that spoil the day, though, because the race itself was one of my best running experiences.

So glad I did it.