Rock and Roll Half Marathon

Saturday June 25th was the day I completed my 22nd half marathon race. Although I am a veteran at running half marathons, I definitely was not as trained for this race as I would have like to have been. I was feeling the pain at mile 10 and I am still sore two days after the race.

Although I do think that this is a very well organized race, the start line is in a horrible location. It cannot accommodate that magnitude of people running. It took me an hour to get off the freeway and to the the participant drop off. Then, I had to walk about a half of mile to the start line. The race officially started at 7:00am and I started at 8:01am. Needless to say, this did not make me very happy since I was starting with walkers and had to dodge thousands of them just to run a decent pace. After I let the anger wear off (I am doing something pretty amazing), I relaxed, as much as one can relax while running 13.1 miles, and took in the beautiful scenery. Which it was. This is a beautiful race. You run along Lake Washington Blvd for about 4 miles.

Lk WA Blvd - courtesy of movoto.com

One great thing about starting so far back is the amount of people you pass during the race. I did have the 2 or 3 people that kept up with me (or I kept up with them) the entire race, but there is something psychologically pleasing about passing people the entire race...and you get to read some great t-shirts. What I mean by this, people will put quote on the back of their shirts.
Some are sad:
                        "running this race for _____, who I lost to cancer"
       "Running in remembrance of _________"

Some are fun:
       "I thought you said rum!"
                        "Dear God, please let someone be behind me so they can read my shirt"

Some are motivational:
                        "The truth is that you can always run faster...and sometimes the truth hurts."
        "Pain is temporary, Pride is forever!"

It amazes me that I have run so many of these damn races, cause at 5am, on the day of the race when I wake up, I always think "this is way too early!" and at mile 10 when I am in pain, my brain is shouting "dammit, I still have 3 more miles to go"

But there is something about crossing that finish line, medal around your neck and the feeling you get from accomplishing something so great, that is like no other feeling in the world.

I can't wait to run another half marathon.

Rebecca and I at the finish line Rock and Roll half 2009

My mom and I at the finish line from the 2011 Rock and Roll half marathon

2011 Rock and Roll Medal