A Day of Firsts

Sunday February 15th was an interesting day. It was marked by four first time events.

I completed a half marathon in my home state for the first time. I have previously run 3 half marathons. One in San Jose, CA, the 2nd in Cinncinati, OH and the third in Philly. I wasnt training to run a half ( or walk one for that matter ) but it was the first annual IMS Marathon and HM. I thought it would be cool to take part in it. Plus they had a 2 for 1 registration special. A friend of ours asked me I would be interested in signing up with her so I said sure. She was running the half. Then Debbie got the bright idea that she wanted to sign up. So she and her friend Amy signed up too. We went to the expo on Saturday to pick up our packet. Sunday morning we arrived bright and early at Jobbing.Com arena to take the shuttle bus to the starting line. We got to the starting line about an hour early. We hung out and tried to stay warm as it was a bit on the chilly side. We met up just before the race with Christine and her husband Cornell.

It wasnt long after that the race started ( Christine was still on line for the potties ) Debbie, Amy and I started off together but it wasnt too far into the race that Amy wasnt going to be able to maintain my pace. So she dropped back. It wasnt but 30 seconds later Debbie informed me that she was going to run a few miles with Christine once she caught up. I wished Debbie good luck. Its a good thing I had my ipod, it was going to be a long race by myself.

Debbie wound up running almost 6 miles with Christine. This from someone who hasnt run in months and hasnt run more than 3 miles in her life. Those 6 miles would cost her dearly.

As I always do I manged to find folks to chat with along the course so I wasnt entirely alone. I wound up catching up to Debbie around the 9 mile mark. She was walking and was in pain. It was hard for me to slow down from the slow pace I was already doing to not leave her in the dust. But I hung with her to the finish. We managed to run the last 100 feet or so the the finsih line hand in hand.

We got our finishers medals and some tasty after race snacks. Amy wound up coming n 10 minutes after Debbie and I. Christine finished about 30 minutes before us.

So there were a couple of the firsts that day. Me completing a HM in Arizona and my wife and I do a race together.

The last of the firsts was that evening. When the day ended, it was exactly 3 weeks since my last Coke or Pepsi. The longest I had gone previously was 19 days. It still isnt easy but as the days go on, I keep thinking eventualy I wont have tho try so hard not to drink soda.

Thanks for reading