Last Saturday I ran my first half marathon and it was a blast! I felt pretty good in the morning, despite having eaten terribly on Friday. I had a burger topped with BBQ pulled pork…I would have never even thought of that haha.

Anyway..I had my KSO Treks on and was getting some interesting looks. One other guy that I saw had the Treks and three others had the KSO’s. I decided not to carry any water for the race because there were supposedly eight aid stations scattered throughout the course. There really were eight, but man were they spread all over the place. We didn’t hit the first one until 3 miles in.

I felt pretty good coming into the little over halfway point (where we had started). At this point I had gone close to three miles without water though and I was starting to feel it. The uphills out there were absolutely insane. I had zero training on that kind of terrain so it was tough for me. I had to use tree branches on several uphills to pull myself up.

I struggled big time on the last three miles. My calves were starting to cramp because of all of the damn uphill action. When I finally came out of the woods about 1/3 mile from the finish, I was SO relieved. I came in as fast as possible with badly cramping calves, got my time and sat my ass down with some Gatorade.

My time was 2:10:20 and I averaged 9:56/mile. This is WAY slower than I run in training but I also run on pretty level ground. I was just happy to finish honestly and I was told that wasn’t a bad time for a beginner on this course. I finished 3rd in my age group and 30th overall out of 97.

During the awards, I got to talk with a guy that gave me some good advice about carrying water and such and told me about a good race in Dallas in November. Needless to say, I’ll be there.