There was cake!

"At least my music didn’t crap out on me!” This was my main thought for a good hour upon finishing my first half marathon, my first race ever. Though to label what I did a race is a bit of a misnomer.

Somewhere around the first of August I looked at my motivation to run & sighed. I didn’t want to drag the kidlet out of bed any earlier to run when it was cool in the mornings; I couldn’t run until late in the evening because I didn’t want the dogs paws to burn on the pavement.

I hastily revised my expectations from “Get fit! Kick some minor ass!” down to “To finish is the win…right?” While I do have an awesome new medal now hanging from my in basket, it took me three days to stop asking myself why I paid almost a full days salary to feel this way. This is about the same amount of time it took to heal the fat girl chafing.

I also gave the dog a nice bone when I picked him up from a friend’s house after the race. If it hadn’t been for him destroying my favorite backpack, I wouldn’t have gotten a better one. It rocks in two respects: zippered pockets on the waist belt, & slip pockets on the shoulder straps, which is where my phone, extra hair ties, & snacks lived. I had my music on shuffle, but occasionally I found my steps slowing…because, as it turns out, I can’t run or even march to an audiobook. Sorry, Jim Butcher.

I made it within my other two goals as well; under four hours, & while I walked roughly half of it, I never stopped moving, I always had forward momentum. I was moving only slightly faster than a real walk to cross the finish line, being half dragged by the over excited toddler.

I could have done so much better; I could be back to my pre-kidlet weight, my arms maybe shouldn’t flop as much, & I could have prevented chafing so badly by losing a bit around the thighs (or at least, MORE monkey powder). However, I did what I set out to do-which apparently was dare myself to train the least amount possible & still finish, the which I accomplished with flying colors.

Also-thank you, my loving, stubborn, caring, blessed father figure, for putting up with my kid for five hours, including a tantrum at the Safeway when he realized that he couldn’t claim all the chocolate in the world for himself, & also for driving us home, since neither I nor my mother were in any shape to pilot a vehicle anywhere near Seattle.