Half-Marathon in the Wine Country

i was sick for the half marathon.

... but i ran anyway. And it was amazing!


We wore chips on our shoes, and I was the only one wearing it backwards. I worried. "Will this still work?" I pointed down at the top of my shoe.

I asked nearly everybody. And everyone reassured me it would, since it's a chip... but i only half- believed them, because otherwise why did everyone but me have their chip facing away from them and mine was facing me, if it indeed didn't matter?

I was feeling low energy and didn't feel that adrenaline that usually hits me just before a race and I sorta prepared myself by shrugging the whole thing off, "well, if the chip doesn't work, it doesn't work... I'll know how long it took me to run it and that's all that really matters...."

But that wasn't the only thing that I was worried about. I was sick with a nasty chest cold. The chills-feeling fever, shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing up mucus, kind of cold. I swallowed a cough suppressant over-the-counter medicine 10 minutes before the race to help curb my cough and then the gun sounded.

"Here goes...." I whispered to myself and I took a deep breath, turned on my music, and off I went...... slowly at first, weaving in and around the slower runners ahead of me and as soon as I found an opening, I found myself running a good solid pace. Seven miles later, I was still running the same solid pace. Look at mee! I sang to myself. "Looook at meeeee! i'm running strong!"

It was by far my best race yet. I was amazed at my stamina. I ran past Mile 8 and I was running just as solid as I did when I first began. By Mile 10, I began to feel it in my legs... my I.T. Band started acting up again. I worried it would affect my running like it did during the Annadel Half Marathon up in the higher elevations. It did somewhat, but it didn't drastically affect my running.

The route was beautiful. Up and down small winding wine country roads. The weather was perfect and I felt terrific!



I loved that I didn't let anything stand in my way. I pushed past my fears of "should I run or should I not run?" because I knew my body would tell me what I could and could not do.

All I knew what I needed to do, was to lean down, lace up my shoes, and hit the pavement running... and then open myself up to the possibilities my body could or could not do.

I finished my race in 2 hours, 13 minutes.