Run Faster!

That's what DH and I told each other yesterday. 

We ran our 4th and 2nd (mine and his, respectively) half marathons and finished near the end of a small pack. I've run big big big races here in Texas and this one was small. I think I prefer the big ones....not the big ones, but the big ones.  We ran fairly well - it was a hilly course with lots of inclines early on and at the turning point it was one fast big in your face hill. I hate hills, FYI. Correction: I don't mind running hills in training, but I hate them in an actual race. 

We trained as usual but between some food poisoning on my part and a crazy couple work weeks on his part, our training runs were less than stellar, especially our longest ones. So a bigger race would have been a better choice - this race was about 600 people which meant that we felt alone on the course a lot and there wasn't a whole lot of race day adrenaline pumping because of that. We had some music difficulties, some knee malfunctions and one memorable plummeting blood sugar incident over the course of our 13.1 miles.

The upside is that despite all the problems, the hills, the lack of running camaraderie that usually accompanies a race, we finished just 11 minutes over our best race time. The stats aren't up yet but there weren't many people behind us. 

The bigger upside? We met two people on the course who we ran with for a mile or so. The first was a guy probably in his 60s who has run over 40 marathons and does triathalons. This guy was just happy to be running! He was telling us all about the runs he's done and the places he's ran in. The second guy was probably in his early 40s and was very glad he met us because we had found his car key at the turning point. As we passed people we were asking if anyone had lost a car key and we found the guy who had! He ran with us for a while, talking about books and running and where DH and I had met. 

Today we are sore and don't want to think about running again. That'll last until later this week when one of us will say "So what race are we doing next?"