Rock & Roll Anyone?

To celebrate my sister Sharon's birthday, I did the Seattle Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon with her on June 23. I was planning on walking the whole thing, so that's what I trained for. However, once I got to Seattle, I decided to change to the same corral as Sharon. Then on race day, when Sharon said, "Do you want to try running for a bit." I thought, "Why not?" So I ran. Then, I alternated between walking and running, until I couldn't do that any longer and then ended up doing a hobble/walk. (Sharon's in much better shape than me, so she had run ahead before we even finished the first mile.)

Not having trained to run distances, I had crippled myself by mile 8. My hips were killing me, and I was literally praying for strength to finish the race. By mile 11, I wasn't trying to run at all. I limped through that whole mile. By mile 12, I was counting down every minute. I would count to 60, curl in a finger, and start counting to 60 again. It took me 18 minutes to walk mile 11 (terribly slow, I know!) so I figured I was looking at another 18 minutes for mile 12. Then something glorious happened. I had counted down about 10 minutes when I looked into the crowd and saw my sister Sarah. (She had come down to cheer us on.) She saw me and came out to walk beside me for a bit. That took my mind off my pain and gave me enough strength to hobble/run again. I actually was able to limp/run across the finish line.

I'm glad I did this with Sharon, but I think if I ever do it again, I'll either train to run or make sure I stick to walking the whole way. It's been almost a month since I ran the 1/2 marathon, and my hips are still giving me trouble. If I was smart, I'd look into that.

This is not a picture of my toes (I couldn't get my camera to take a clear shot), but it is what the left toe beside my big toe looks like right now. I developed a blister under my toenail, which resulted in my losing the nail. I do believe that runners feet are hideous! :)