So let's just say, things were not necessarily smooth, but on the whole the day was nearly perfect. The weather gods only threw in one of the weather atrocities they like to challenge you with on a race day, Humidity. Upper 50s, partly to mostly cloudy and 85% humidity. It was pleasing to only have one of the seemingly insurmountable challenges rather than all of them like the day of White Rock. So how did I do? It was a personal best, but not by very much! Two hours, nine minutes and twenty three minutes.
The race started like every other half marathon I've run in, people wedged together in the street like sardines. The race course started out through the French Quarter, which as someone who does not revere Bourbon Street, I could care less about running through and running down that drunkenly heralded street. To make it worse, the streets in the quarter were soaking wet. The sanitation trucks had just sprayed down the remnants of the prior evening's multiple indiscretions and it was vomity-urine lemon slick. The streets are very old and therefore very narrow with trucks were beached on the sidewalks and in the streets. It made for rather precarious conditions. Once out of the quarter, I burst forth with pent up frustration and let my legs roll. They rolled too fast and once I hit mile 7, I thought I was going to die. Actually dead. I knew exactly where it all went wrong. I started the course way to fast and paid dearly for in the end. But in the end, regardless of the misery and shameful walking, I still managed to average a pace of 9:43 a mile and I finished under 2:10:00!
It was a great day.
Mom has claimed that she will never have to run again, now that she has run the 5k. But, I do not see this as being the case; Mom is the most competitive human being on this planet and she ran the 5k really well, so well that she now has unknowingly challenged herself to beat her own time and more importantly those that dared to finish before her...Watch Out! She is coming!
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