Today I ran my first half-marathon. I ran cross-country in high school but runs were generally only three or four miles. What I loved most about it was the trail runs and have done trail running off an on since then, but never more than a five mile run and never very consistently. The longest runs I ever did were Bay To Breakers while still in high school and The Mud Run in 2002. But now I might be hooked on this long(er) distance run business. Or at least half-marathons for now. I'm not entirely sure about the full marathon thing...yet.
Andy and Alex get in a little pre-run stretch.
"Let's do this!"
The view sure was nice.
The winner's stand - we only stood and posed, our new friend Guillaume actually won the half-marathon. Guillaume also wins favorite quote of the day with: "Hello? Yes...
I win!" - The first thing he said, using a cell phone he borrowed from Andy, to the person who's couch he is staying on, in San Francisco, while on vacation in the states, from France.
Today's run was part of The North Face Endurance Challenge 2008. I've worked at The North Face in Palo Alto for two years now as Visual Merchandiser. Getting free trail-running shoes every six months and hanging cool posters of ultra long distance athletes every month left me little choice but to sign up for this event. And how could I resist The North Face paying my entrance fee with free shwag included. The categories were 10k, half-marathon, 50k and 50mile. I figured half-marathon was my best bet for challenging yet realistic. Knowing that this event was organized by The North Face I should have figured on it being a little more challenging than just a regular half-marathon.
See that last little tiny blip of uphill at the very end? That was the hardest part of the run! I was mentally prepared for the three big uphills and did great on all the downhills - then all but checked out for the tiny little stretch to the finish!
