It wasn’t the coldest race we’d run but it was darn close. The roadside thermometers all read in the low 30′s on the way up to Mt. Vernon for the Nookachamps Half Marathon. And it didn’t help that we had to get up at 0′dark thirty to get up there. We weighed in at Weight Watchers, grabbed some coffee, picked up Marti and hit the road. We arrived in plenty of time so we wandered around and hopped in the line for the bathroom.
At the start it didn’t look like that many people were running but they indicated about 700 people had signed up. We took off. Not even two minutes later Kathy stopped to fiddle with her shoe and that was the last time we saw her. She ended up doing the 10k run instead. As we were heading out there were a bunch of bystanders cheering people on. One guy was standing on top of a rock wall when suddenly I heard a thud and then a kid started crying. We couldn’t tell if he slid down the wall and landed on the kid or if he was holding it and they both fell. Either way, it didn’t look like it felt too good.
We had a gentle incline for a ways then a big downhill. We ran between fields that may have grown corn. Some of the stalks were still sticking up from the ground. There were Trumpeteer swans, horses, turkeys, chickens and dogs. All of them had something to say to us. Some of the horses were running around their fields and a turkey spread out its feathers and gave us a gobble-gobble-gobble. Dogs barked at us and chickens clucked.
We hit the 5 mile mark and I was darn near ready for this race to be done with. I wasn’t particularly hurting but I just wasn’t into it. We hit the aid station at mile 6 and turned onto a single-file lane through ‘town’. The lane was marked by orange cones on the street side and a 10 foot dropoff to a ditch on the other side. Better not loose your footing here. Soon enough we were turning off toward a neighborhood. It lasted all of about two blocks. We hit the halfway point right after this and decided to have a Gu. Not a minute too soon either. I was having some negative self-talk from nearly the very beginning and the caffeine perked me up. For a little while.
We came to an aid station at around mile 8 and this section was an out and back. We wound our way down the street finally hitting the turnaround. The volunteer there said, “almost home” to which I replied, “I wish it were homier”. We headed back up the gentle slope back toward mile 9 and the aid station. By the time we got there they were about to load up the aid station and volunteers. Great.
I had heard about a killer hill between miles 10 and 11. We headed up it and decided to walk a little way. We alternated walking and running but it wasn’t really that big of a hill. It just went on forever. By the time we crested the top a volunteer pulled up in his truck with trailer and pulled the 11 mile sign. He was picking up the cones and aid stations right on our tails. He gave us directions to the finish and took his time gathering stuff up so he wouldn’t pass us. Well, he eventually did pass us but we only had about 1 1/2 miles to go. Most of the rest of the race was downhill. Yay! Morrie and I got down to about 1/2 mile to go and we saw Susan up ahead. She wasn’t that far ahead of us. We rounded the corner into the parking lot. Morrie was concerned that this wasn’t the right way to go but we turned another little corner and there was the finish line. Whoo-hoo! We crossed in 2:45:42.
There were showers at the finish line so we all hobbled into the locker room and cleaned up. Then, as is our tradition, we headed off to eat. We ended up at the Calico Cupboard Cafe where I had a delicious vegetarian chili in a bread bowl. Soon we were off heading down the highway back to Seattle.
