Aurora's Blog

I’m calling this half marathon “13b” because I got lost on the course last weekend, accidentally taking some distance off.

Today started off in sort of a funny way. My dad warned me on the way to my grandma’s, “You have to be careful what time you say you want to get up. If you say you want to get up at 5, she’s going to wake you up an 4:30 to make sure you’re actually going to get up.”

Sure enough, at 4:25, someone is poking me. Yep, it’s my grandma waking me up.

We get ready and head to Louisville. I ditched my headphones for this race, because I had a wonderful time in Havasu opening my ears to the people around me.

(Also, I’m pretty sure I left my favorite headphones on the plane coming out here! Don’t fret too much, I think I have an extra pair of my Sennheiser PMX 60s in my apartment, in case I were to break or lose the pair I totally just lost…)

Last week, I’d worn shoes that aren’t quite broken in all the way. Here’s the thing about those shoes – they fit well and feel incredible on my left foot. They hit me in a weird place on my right foot, which was sort of painful. I think I may have two slightly different sized feet… I’m figuring it out. The point is, my right foot had been hurting a bit, but it felt great this morning. Woo hoo!

The sidewalks were packed with people, but I made it to corral F. I looked around for new running buddies. There were a lot of people in the zone, with earbuds tucked in. There were a couple of pairs of people deep in conversation with each other. And then I saw a group of four people laughing. I told them they looked to be the most fun people in the corral. They welcomed me into their little group with open arms.

Terry was in the midst of a pretty brilliant idea. There were $500 coupons on our bibs for a car from a dealership down in Louisville, but there was no fine print. He was collecting coupons from everyone who wasn’t going to buy a car, with the plan of going into the dealership, and dumping all the coupons on the table. “Car, please.”

He didn’t keep up with this idea, but I do think trying it would’ve been interesting, if nothing else.

At the beginning of the race, I didn’t try to stay with my new friends, figuring they’d be too fast for me. Not all that long into the first mile, I realized Terry and Randy were just to the left of me, and we were pacing about the same.

I jogged over there and it was a very exciting reunion, even though I’d only been away from them for maybe about .3 miles.

We ran together and they were hilarious and full of energy. We finished the first mile in 12:12. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep that pace up for the next 12.1 miles. But I thought I’d see if I could keep up with the boys through the first 5. Luckily, they slowed down a little, but we were still jogging at a nice pace. I made it through the first 5k with them.

Think I can keep up with them any longer? Find out tomorrow.