Surprise Half-Mary!

 Well...I wasn't planning on it, but I'm glad I did it.  I've slowly weaned myself off of every day cardio through the last year, but then my daughter's friend ran the "Princess Half" at Disneyworld with Zero training and gave my daughter the bug --now Tia wanted to do a half!  I ran Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon last year and had a great time -even though I originally signed up just to help get ready for the Ragnar. Tia was too young to sign up for Thanksgiving, so we planned her to do the Hobble Creek Half in August instead.  I tentatively agreed to do it with her provided my feet didn't act up. 

 Suddenly I found myself in the middle of this crowd on Saturday.  Seriously --it was like that.  I bought myself some more minimalist type shoes which has helped me build up to a piddly 3 mile/3 mile/4 mile training week so far with Tia.  Then on Wednesday afternoon, our neighbor told us his wife was going out of town (to London --during the royal wedding --poor her!) and couldn't run in Thanksgiving this year then he asked me if I wanted to run it.  Temptaaaation! I hauled Jeff out on a 7 mile test that night, realized no wheels had fallen off my chassis by Friday morning, and Saturday morning drove up with my neighbor for the race.

 This is NOT what I pictured for a "Tulip Festival" race!  I was so apprehensive about slipping, and even about finishing!  I hadn't done a long run like that in a long time.  Thank goodness for facebook!  I posted saying I was doing it so I couldn't back out without eating a lot of crow.

 Here's my neighbor rockin' the trashbag raincoat.  I wished I'd brought one to be honest.  It looked scary and cloudy.  The first mile it snowed on us. 

 But then the sun came out!  The tulips were still pretty with snow on them.  Hey --a note about pictures: I hate stopping when I run.  I don't stop for water, for fuel --anything.  So I just took a ton of pictures on the run, and then deleted most of them because they turned out to be random pictures of the sky or someone's elbow. :)

I also didn't get a pic of the pivotal moment of the race for me:  I'm running along, and decide I'm too warm for my hat thingy, so I take it off and go to stuff it in my sweatshirt pouch, and while I'm looking down RUN OVER a TRAFFIC CONE.  How you may ask? It's as tall as my shoulder, bright orange, and has reflective tape on it.  Chalk it up to my native klutziness I guess.  Luckily I was wearing gloves so I only tore up my glove and not my hand.  The cool tech fabric Nike pants Jeff lent me didn't even sneeze at the crash, although I've got a bruise on my leg the size of a saucer.  Did I tell you the story about when I fell off the stand at church?  Remind me not to.

The family came up to see me come in.  I know I look 78 years old in this picture!  I was COLD! (and apparently more interested in my bagel than the camera).

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