Racefest 4/2007 1/2 mary with Hope (my sis)

Today I had the honor to run with my sister, Hope, while she completed her 1st 1/2 marathon!
The day started out a little overcast, but soon turned to partly sunny skies with a warm temp of around 60 degrees. There was a mild breeze during the whole race which made it the perfect weather to run in. It is a wonderful day to be alive.
We met around 0700 to pick up our packets. Little did we know everyone else in the whole race would have the same idea.

We waited in a LONG line and finally got the shirt, #, and chip. We looked for a bathroom, yet there was a LONGER line for that so we went back to the car to drop off our shirts, and put on our chip and #.

The 2nd picture is of Hope putting on her #, at least that is what she claims.

We went to the start of the race and acted OUT OF CONTROL for a few more minutes b/4 the race began. Everyone else was so serious. I guess they were out for a PR...I told Hope that no matter how she did, this would be a PR for her.

At 0800 we were off and running. It was really packed that 1st mile, but we passed it around 10:30. I did not have a watch, so we were actually ahead of that pace by a minute or 2. I told Hope we needed to slow down b/c we were planning on an 11MPM pace and I wanted this to be a good experience.

We passed mile 2 at 21 min...by some girls watch....I overheard her say this. Hope was still looking strong, but I could tell this was going to be a HILLY race. So far we had been going uphill for 2 miles.

Mile 3 came quickly, 31 min I think, even though we stopped to walk a few seconds. As we were taking pictures at this mile marker, a guy came by and yelled, "Why are you taking pictures, it's not like you just finished or won?" We just laughed and I told him, that I thought this was a 5k and we had won. Boy, I am F-U-N-N-Y!

Mile 4! During this mile, I stopped for a "health break" at a Circle K. I told Hope to go on and I would catch up. We had finally started down hill. She ran on, I did my thing, then started a stellar pace to find Hope. Passed tons of people.

Then I came to mile 5....b/4 I found Hope, but had to get the picture. It says 57:13, but remember, I had not caught up with Hope yet, so she was ahead of this pace! When I stopped to take the picture, I heard a guy say it was stupid for me to have a camera and take pictures on a 1/2 marathon course. WHAT THE HECK! In a month, he will be sad he did not have an AWESOME photo album. We also passed a port-a-jon during this mile and took a picture just for kicks. At this point, we were going uphill AGAIN!

Mile 6! WOW HOPE! You are AWESOME! At this point, a man with a baby jogger and a child who was at least 30lbs PASSED US! We stayed with him until the end.

Mile 7, we had lost our mind! There are 3 pictures of this mile marker. The guy at mile 3 finally caught back up to us and offered to take our picture. He said he could tell we did not care about our time. DUH! Then he started in on all the marathons he had run...blah, blah, blah. We slowed down to let him go ahead. This mile we had to stop for traffic. Oh well! It gave me a chance to take a Tums. My reflux was starting to hurt, but the Tums stopped it.

Mile 8 was at a H2O stop and (you guessed it) UPHILL! We saw and took a picture of a really cool dog, saw some buddies from church, and passed the baby jogger. The child was crying at this point because somewhere btwn mile 6-8, the dad had hit a curb and the child FELL OUT! He scraped his face all up. The runner mom was also with them at this point. We made sure they were OK, and ran on.

Mile 9 was through beautiful neighborhoods and TOTALLLY UPHILL! I have a picture of one of the hills, but you really cannot tell anything about it. We are walking a little bit more. B/c of life, Hope only trained to 8.5 miles (I let her think until the end of the race that she trained to 10 though.). But, she was still going strong!

We hit mile 10 at 1:57:58. 10 miles! WOW! The hills were up, but the neighborhoods were beautiful and the volunteers were really nice.

At mile 11, we hit a little down hill. We started saying that we would just run 1 more mile....just 1 more mile......Yeah, I know we really have 2, but at this point during the race, it doesn't matter. Hope thought she had something in her shoe, but it ended up being a blister. But after she looked at it, I NEVER heard her say one thing about it. THIS WOMAN IS Insane! SHE RUNS THROUGH THE PAIN! We also somehow passed mile 5 again...this was really disturbing.

Mile 12...Yeah! One more mile for real! We hit this at 2:24. Hope asked if this was good. GIRL! YOU ARE GOING TO FINISH! Yes, it is good. She was strong the rest of the way and finished well! I think the time was 2:39 clock time. Not sure of the chip time.

We got our medals, took off the chips, and drank some gatorade.
Then we went and grubbed on some great food at the Mint Hill Deli! What a wonderful race!
HOPE YOU DID IT! - Is a marathon next?