A Hilly Half-Marathon

On October 15, Jen and I drove the route of the Newport Half-Marathon.  It is a stunningly beautiful route along the ocean and through the mansions along the coast.  It is also a truly unique route in that it is at least 80% uphill.  One might think that this is impossible as it starts and ends in the same place but, nevertheless, it is the truth.  With this irrefutable fact in mind, Jen and I left the house in some trepidation on the 17^th at 0600 to go stand at the start line and freeze for an hour.  Booh and Seb joined us (my parents stayed home to look after all four kids) and freely discussed their plan to head to the nearest greasy spoon for a hot breakfast while we sweated up the inclines.  Whose idea was this anyway?   

My target was to complete the run in less than two hours, a target I became less and less comfortable with at the 0800 start time neared.  Just as I was about to adjust my target to ‘just finishing’  the gun went off and a group of 4000 people moved along around me as I crossed the start line.  I managed to stay close to Jen for the first seven miles (11ish km) and that definitely helped me to keep a good pace.  As my glimpses of the back of her head became less frequent I was almost half finished so I just gritted my teeth and put my head down, wishing all the while that I had trained a little longer and a lot faster but fairly confident that I would make it in time.  I crossed the finish line with a time of 1 hour and 56 minutes and 16 seconds.  Yipee!.  Jen finished in an even better 1 hour 50 minutes and 25 seconds.  Both very happy with our times.