Rock N' Roll

So remember when I said that Joseph and I were going to run another marathon?

Well due to some injuries throughout the winter that just wouldn't go away, we weren't able to train as much as we wanted.  So we made the decision to just run the half.  We didn't see the point to further injure ourselves by pushing us to far.

Overall, I was really happy with our decision.  The half-marathon course was beautiful and ran down the mall and through the nice areas of the district.  We were able to enjoy ourselves.  The weather was perfect, it was warm and sunny.  Apparently the second half of the marathon course ran through the ugliest parts of DC, so I really don't think that we missed anything.

Getting to the race was almost a disaster though.  We decided that it would be easiest to take the metro in to the district, so that we didn't have to worry about road closures and lack of parking.  The closer that we got to the start line the fuller the train got, until at one point it was to full, the doors wouldn't shut and they kicked everybody off the train.  We had to wait for the next train, and we were packed in like sardines for a couple of stops.  It was horribly claustrophobic.  It also made us late to the start line, I heard the race start while I was in the porta potty.  Fortunately there were so many people that it didn't really matter, we were able to get over to the start and jump right in and start running.

There were so many people in the race, they had bands that played music along the course, which was pretty cool.

The last time I ran a half-marathon was in 2008, right before we got married.  At that point it was the furthest that I had ever run, but it was an all downhill course.  My goal for Saturday since I really hadn't run much at all the last two months was to just beat my time from 2008, and I did.  By about 3 minutes.  I was pretty happy about that.

Joseph and I ran together until around mile 10, he decided he was going to sprint to the finish, and I was not.  He finished the last three miles way faster than I could have, and beat me overall by about 4 four minutes.  I was happy about it though because it forced me to suck it up and run strong until the end.

Thank you to my parents who woke up bright and early with us to cheer us on, and take some pictures!