Well, the important thing is that I finished. The second most important thing is how I actually ran.
Allison and I finished at exactly the same time: 2 hours, 32 minutes and 39 seconds. We were aiming for 2 hours and 30 minutes, so I suppose that I could be disappointed… but like I said, the goal was always just to finish.
Allison and I finished with the same time, but she comes before me alphabetically, so she finished one spot ahead of me in the listings. She was 1881 out of 2979 runners and I was 1882. Which is why I will be changing my name to Aaaaamanda. It might be a little confusing at family gatherings. But so worth it.
We did a lot more walking than I would have liked. And a lot more walking than Allison would have liked. What can I say? There were a lot of effing hills in Pasadena. Allison kept saying “This is the last hill, I swear.” She is a dirty, rotten liar and her running shorts are on fire. But, she’s also an awesome running buddy and a lot of fun to have by your side for 13.1 miles. We laughed it up with everyone around us on the course. The best part? Running down one of the steeper hills and yelling “Wheeeeeeeeeee!” When a guy turned to laugh at us, Allison told him her favorite joke.
(What did the snail say while riding on the back of turtle?)
(Wheeeeeeeeee!!!)
We also ran by a lovely woman who told me she liked my tattoo (Hope! Very nice!), got sprayed down by a guy with a gallon of Bio-Freeze in one of those industrial sprayers that they use to kill weeds and just barely got beaten by a woman who, despite being no better at this whole running business than we are, was wearing those running undies normally sported by the elite women. 13.1 miles of sporadically seeing the bottom of her, well, bottom. You’d think it would have made me run faster.
I don’t have any more photos… because in all of Kristian’s shots I look either fat, blurry or fat and blurry. And yet? No regrets about that trip to In N Out Burger. It was so worth it.
I’ve already signed up for my next half marathon (Worcester in June). Not meeting my goal of 2:30 just makes it that much easier to do better next time. Maintaining my current mileage should also help. I worked my way up from a short run of 1.5 miles and a long run of 2 miles to a short run of 4 miles and a long run of 10. If that doesn’t tell you how hard I worked for this, I don’t know what does. Now? I just need to maintain those longer distances. Piece of cake… once I can walk again. The massage I had on Monday helped me to almost feel human again, but I still want to cry every time I walk an incline or have to take any stairs. My hope is to start running again in a few days (right after I start walking again). With set distances, I can work on my speed and cut down on my walking. I already mostly run, but I’d like to get to the point where I don’t walk at all.
It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we had a ton of fun. I really loved having an excuse to hang out with my sister and her fiancé. I’m actually a little sad to not have a common goal and a visit to look forward to, but I’m hoping that the next race will keep me going.
Just last year, Allison and I both had knee problems so bad, we weren’t sure of our future as athletes. I was initially scared that I’d never be able to run again. I worked my tail off to get to the point where I could just start training. To finish a half marathon was something I probably couldn’t have even imagined last Spring. I’ll admit it, when we runners started off and I realized that, yes, this was really happening… I got a little teary. This time last year, I couldn’t even run a mile. And I just ran 13.1 of them.
I’d have to say… mission accomplished.
You rock, Hope. Sounds like a great story!
Congrats! I am so proud of you! 🙂
Yaaaay! Sounds awesome! Enjoy your name change — sadly there are many people of our age group named A(aaaaa)manda. But not everyone is awesome enough to be named Amanda AND Hope. 😉
This made me have a heart attack. But congrats! I so admire you!
wooohoo! congratulations to you and Allison both! i’m so glad your knee isn’t bothered by all this fantastic running.
also, i love that snail joke. (wheee!)
Congrats!!
Thanks everybody!
Hoper —
You could call yourself A.A. Milne and nobody at a family gathering would think twice. Well, at least nobody at a family gathering of Pastafarians. Seriously, with the Steward, Biskit, Bert, Epops, Linto, Salty, Blind Abe, and the Effing Hahn around, who’d even notice?
Yay! You done good! That’s awesome!
My girlfriend is doing the half marathon in Worcester in June as well… I hear it’s the first one of this kind. I’m doing the Run to Remember in May in Boston!
I thought about doing the Run to Remember, but Worcester is just so lovely this time of year. :p
I’m intrigued by this being the first annual. I figure people will be pretty excited…. but there’s also an excellent chance that it will be slightly disorganized! Oh well, it’s really just to motivate me to keep running. 😉
Awesome! So inspiring!
Truly amazing. I have serious respect for anyone who can run a race or marathon of any sort- Way to go!