I ran in the 2017 Austin Half-Marathon last weekend. I hadn’t done a distance race since the 2015 Austin Half as the final race in the 2014-2015 Austin Distance Challenge’s Half-Marathon track. That year, I was training for a full marathon, but the twin’s early birth and NICU detoured me to the half track, which still included three half-marathons (including one I ran while living at the hospital).

This year’s run was warm and muggy and, frankly, I forgot about all of the hills during training. If the 13.1 miles were just around the neighborhood, I think it would have been a pretty fine race, but with the hills and weather, I wasn’t ready for it. Mile 8-9.5 were pretty darn painful.

But, Clif gave out free gel shots and Austin Beerworks gave out shots of beer at mile 13, so I had enough pushing me forward. My time was right within a minute of the other times I ran that race solo.

The finisher’s medal had a removable ribbon and doubles as a belt buckle. I can’t say I wear belt buckles often, but I definitely did to church that evening. 😁

I’m toying with the idea of starting a running blog (or category here) to track building up to 26.2 miles.