…until next time. Sorry – it’s just that season.
I know I mentioned it in an earlier post, but I have a race coming up this weekend that I’m ridiculously excited for.
Officially called the ING Philadelphia Distance Run, it’s a half-marathon in Philly that offers a beautiful (supposedly flat) course, with lots of crowd support and bands every few miles as encouragement. And not only am I excited about running in Philly (I may technically be a suburbs girl, but it’s still home), but I’m excited that this will be my first half-marathon where I’m officially timed.
You see, my last half-marathon was a bit of a debacle. You’d think, that for an annual event, they’d have the logistics down. But that proved to not be the case. We found out, right before our starting time, that the race permit obtained by the directors was for about 300 runners. And that they had allowed about 1000 to register. You see the discrepancy there?
And so the park rangers stepped in and removed the timing pad and the official clock. Excuse me? We were then informed that we could still run, but we had to remove our numbers, because this couldn’t be an actual race.
It would have been very easy to quit. To turn around, get in the car, and go back to bed.
BUT:
1) We were already there and ready and could, technically, time ourselves.
2) My parents had come down to watch me race, and I felt guilty about making them wake up at such an ungodly hour.
Pre-race. What a trooper. I don't know where Daddy was for this one.
3) We were told that we’d still receive our medals.
That was really the selling point.
And so we ran, timed ourselves, and got our medals. But it didn’t feel the way a first half-marathon should feel. So I’m calling this weekend a do-over. The first one was just practice. On Sunday we’ll have actual crowds, water stops, clocks and official scores.
And, of course, a medal. Because that’s really the reason we do these anyway.
Success!
Happy Friday!
