a half is still a lot of work.

How does one write about running a half marathon, anyway? It's pretty much the same motion, over and over again, for a long time. But I will try.

On Saturday I ran the Urban Wildland half marathon in Richfield. The course is very nice, as it goes around lakes and through nature reserves and is flat most of the way. They also strive to be a green race by being waste free. And they had good stuff - the shirt feels great, and I got yet another reusable tote bag. (Seriously, five envirosax and another six bags that I've gotten from classes/races/catalogs/transit initiatives. Enough! Though, I do like this one, and it comes with the double superiority of being eco-friendly and running a half marathon.)

On to the actual race...this was the first one I ran where I was really alone. Usually I have a running companion, or at the very least finish line companions whom I can't keep up with. (I did get my parents to come to the finish line, so I guess that's something.) And although I had made ambitious time goals long ago, I knew I probably wouldn't reach them given my laid back training. It definitely wasn't my best race, in terms of how I felt or my time. The interlude between each mile marker always felt much slower than my actual pace, and at some point around mile 7 my legs turned to jello and never really came back. And somehow I still finished with a reasonable time - 2:05:30 (9:35 pace). I definitely didn't reach my goal (under two hours), but it's not in the horrible range either. (These are all relative to me, of course.)

So there's that. My quads are still killing me, and I'm hoping to bike a lot more this week instead of running.