Twisted Ankle 1/2 Marathon

Race day finally arrived and I was nervous. My tendon felt fine but I knew I was lacking some conditioning after not having any real quality training runs due to the tendonitis. It was overcast and humid with temperatures in the upper 70's and the top of the "mountain" was covered with a hazy cloud of moisture.

My friend, Andrew and I listen to pre-start announcements, give each other a little ribbing and wait for the start. The seconds are ticking down and ..... GO! We're off. Feeling good, pace 8:12, is this a little fast? I know there's a hill somewhere up ahead. Around the lake and into the trees. First little hill, not too bad and still running fine. Down the hill and then ..... THE HILL is upon us. I try short choppy steps only to later give in to walking. My heart rate has shot up and I need to catch my breath. Good thing I'm only doing the half and not the full marathon like Andrew.

This was by far the hardest 1/2 marathon I have ever run. Mostly because my conditioning was not where I would like for it to have been. I made it to the top of the hill. It was about a 1000' climb on single track trail for a little over a mile. We then made the turn to run along the top of the ridge. This was an out back trail with plenty of hills to the turn around. I made it back to the portion of the trail that takes us back down to the finish. I will be honest, I did a lot of walking, more than I would normally and more than I wanted. Down the big hill, a couple of smaller ones and on to the finish. I cross at 3:04:32, my slowest and worst time ever in a half marathon, trail or road. Below is the elevation chart off my Garmin, which doesn't really do the course justice.

I finished about 95 of 135, I wasn't last but I felt like it. I do know that several people dropped out of both races and some dropped from the full to run the half. I think the total registered number of runners was 350, 175 half & 175 full. Total finishers both races 240.

Injury Report: my ego which was severely bruised, is the only thing that was hurt during the run.