5 miles pacing my beloved sister Laura to the end of her very first half marathon. CONGRATULATIONS LAURA!!! She was tough. The course was out and back, and, of course, at high altitude. The first half was mostly uphill, and then downhill the second half. Man, she attacks the uphill like a lion! I honestly think she went faster on uphills than on downhills. I don't understand that at all, but I can respect it!
It was a BEEEE-yootiful course running through super green, shady areas, with majestic mountains in the background. The weather was perfect--cool and windless. She stayed pretty strong right to the end, making wimpy sounds just a few times. ;) Tougher than I was in my first half, I think. I encouraged her to just put in a little more effort, like .1 on a treadmill. Just a touch more effort in a long race like this makes a BIG difference in pace. The ol' body wants to fall asleep on you around mile 10. She passed several people in the last 2 miles, including chicking 2 guys with .3 to the finish. Most triumphant! It was a very pleasant run for me and I sort of wished I had run the whole thing with her. One sad thing was that James wasn't able to really race. He had a major calf problem. Well, it's kind of a recurring problem, but sometimes it let's him run and sometimes it doesn't. He had a really bad cramp-up on Sat. I worked on it for almost an hour (massage and scraping) on Sunday, but it wasn't quite enough to make it work. This morning he started to really feel it after a mile or two and knew he couldn't finish the race at his pace, so he walked until Laura caught up to him, and paced her the rest of the way. Very sweet guy! He has been handling the disappointment very well. | 