1/2 Marathon and Patty Griffin

Well folks, I finished the half-marathon. 13.1 miles strong. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to run it becausd of my enigmatic foot injury, but I did it anyways and surprisingly my foot actually felt better running than it did walking, so it didn't bother me all that much. Nothing unbearable anyway.

We finished in 2 hours 9 minutes and 45 seconds, which is what we were going for. We were trying to beat a ten minute pace, and we did, which was great for us, being that it was our first one. We ran pretty much every mile at a 9:55 pace (except our first mile took us something like 11 minutes because it was pretty crowded and we couldn't set our pace well at first) - but we kicked it up a notch for our last mile and ran it in 8 minutes. It was awesome. It was such a great feeling to be able to run 13 miles without getting out of breath or feeling like you're going to die. We finished in the top half of all the runners - something like 1200 out of 3500 runners...so that's something to be proud of.

Mark and I ran the whole way together, then somehow ran into Heather in mile 11 - so we all 3 got to finish the race together which was cool.

So yea, I survived and it was a good time. I will more than likely keep training for different half's --- I am not yet convinced that I ever want to run a full...I don't think my body would like me very much if I did that -- but who knows, maybe one day. I will post some pictures later for your viewing pleasure --- and so you know that I'm not lying to you, and I really did finish. haha.

AND, last night, I got to vicariously be at a Patty Griffin concert. Lindsay and Marie went to the Patty show in Birmingham last night - and so I got a call and got to listen to "Trapeze" when she sang that, then got a message this morning (I fell asleep before I got this call), when she was singing "Heavenly Day" and it was AWESOME. I was so jealous - but it was great to get to hear a few songs...and close my eyes and pretend I was there. She is so amazing. I'm conemplating going to see her play in LA when I'm out there. So, thank you Lindsay for calling me and giving me a little piece of heaven for a few minutes...it was incredible and made me smile huge. (AND I have the Heavenly Day voice mail saved on my machine, so can listen to it whenever I want. wahoo!)