Prairie Fire Rain

Ok, I'm just going to stop saying it.  Obviously, I can't give up the half marathon gig, so I promise to no longer say that this is my last half marathon.  Now, that said....Today I ran in the Prairie Fire Half Marathon!  I think this was #9 for me.  And it was a cloudy, rainy morning.  I loved it!   Of course there were problems during my training, as it seems to be with me these days, I'm obviously getting old.  Things were cruising along just great, then after one long run I didn't get a chance to cool down and stretch my legs right away and my left IT-band seized up on me.  That put me out for about 2 weeks, while I stretched and iced and stretch and iced and foam rolled and iced and got a massage and stretched trying to get my IT-band to not scream at me every time I bent my leg to sit in a chair.  So I've had the last 3 weekends or so to try and get my running legs back in shape for today, not to mention my running confidence.  And it has been a sore and painful process.  You'd think I'd just not run the race, but no, I'd already paid my $50 and by golly I was getting my cotton race t-shirt, my finishers medal, AND my finishers dri-fit t-shirt.  This race gives out great goodies!

I had no real goals going into this race, if I got below 2 hours then great, but really I was just hoping my IT-band and my knees were going to hold out for me.  So, I got up this morning, slathered on half a tube of biofreeze, took a bunch of ibuprofen, gathered my gear and headed for the start line.  I thought the race this year went really well.  I loved running in the misting rain and I never hit that spot around mile 9 or 10 where I start questioning my sanity in deciding that running these stupid things are a good idea.  I just plugged along and while my knees and my legs were getting tight, it never got to the point of me thinking this was a bad idea.  Plus, I had the best cheering section right around mile 7ish.

And the finish line.

I finished in 2:02 and I don't think I probably could of run it faster.  And I'm okay with that.

Since it pretty much poured down rain the entire day and the kids were tired of "resting" with me, they went outside to play.  Willow - my little Kansas born child - is not a huge fan of the rain.  She told me it was yucky - "blech"

Jayden begs us to move back to Washington all the time.  He loves the rain!