On October 17th, almost two weeks ago, I ran a half marathon. The path to running the race started with a conversation in August with my colleague Andrew. He ran on a cross country team in college and he wanted to try running a marathon. He motivated me to sign up for the race and gave me a few tips for running. I trained with a 1 mile run most weekdays and a long run on weekends. Before the race, the longest run I went for was about 10 miles. The race was the Baystate Marathon in Lowell, MA. It was exciting to start in such a massive crowd herded down a main throughway of the city of Lowell. As the race progressed, the herd slowly thinned out along the miles of track into a trickle of people. I am glad I did not encounter any serious pain or injury during the long trek. I was thankful for my headphones and the playlists I set up before the race. Once I was able to disassociate a bit, the time went by a little easier. When I came to the final turn towards the finish line, a small burst of energy came up from nowhere and allowed me to speed up a bit for the last 100 yards. Perhaps it was the casual cheers from passing strangers on the sidewalk. People who I did not know saying 'you got this' or 'just a bit further' was actually quite nice and helpful when I was that tired. Ally drove me home afterwards as I rubbed my feet.
After the race, I had a warm cup of coffee and a cold brown ale. Some people might avoid such a combination but I welcomed it. As I recovered, Ally and I built a chest of drawers from a popular Swedish furniture store.
Tired and wind whipped me holding my medal and foil blanket after the race.
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