Let's Get This Over With: 13x13x13 - 9

I'm a bit late in posting about my half marathon adventures this month. Sadie and I both ran #9 on September 6th, about 2 weeks ago. Sadie knocked hers out before work, like the champ that she is, and I was in my hometown of Canby, Oregon visiting my family.

Now I can't complain that this run was too hot, but I will tell you it was pretty miserable (for a variety of reasons that would take far too long to explain). It would seem that one of the main sources of my suffering involved running on a course with hills; none of them were too terribly long or steep, just really consistent. When coming from a place where the closest thing we have to a hill is a freeway overpass, lets just say I don't get a lot of practice with them. This caused a secondary issue of muscle cramping. I never have problems with muscle cramping on runs, but this one was the exception - my little calves were begging for mercy and I just kept going. For THREE hours!

This brings me to another significant misery factor: how long I was out there. In most of my blogs you can usually find a phrase something to the effect of, "it wasn't my best and it wasn't my worst. I'll take it." Well, let me tell you, this was my worst.
Final time: 3:09:47

I've recently finished reading a book by Sister Madonna Buder called The Grace to Race. She's an 80-year old nun who competes in triathlons - including the IronMan. Specifically, you could say she specializes in opening (or creating) new age group brackets. At the end of the IronMan, after swimming 2 and a half miles, then biking over 100 miles, you still have to complete a full marathon. She describes her experience with the final marathon not as running, but as a "death march." And that is exactly what I did in the last 3 miles of this half marathon.

The good news: we're almost done!
The bad news: due to the impending move and subsequent craziness, I haven't run since this day. (oops!)

Also, my phone filled up after taking the picture of the t-shirt, so here are a couple of photos I found of the trail I ran on. At least it was pretty!