Battle of Hill-otes

This past Saturday I ran a half marathon. It was a tough one to conquer since it's only description on it's website was: Description: Hilly. It was telling no lies. It was aptly named the Battle of Hillotes which was a play on the name of the small town of Helotes that it took place.

There was no way I was coming home without finishing. I took the past seven weeks and three days following a training plan I devised for myself by plotting it on a spreadsheet. I took 3 or 4 other 10 and 12 week plans that I had and figured out how I could improvise them into something I could actually use. I don't know if it was a good plan or not but it got me to where I wanted to go and that was crossing the finish line.

It was more than planning. It was getting up at 4:00 am and running 3 or 4 sometimes 5 miles before work. The alarm would go off and I would push to get up. Some days it was easy and some days there was no way I believed I hadn't just closed my eyes to fall asleep. There were a few mornings I was up and dressed to run before my brain realized I was ready to go. Coffee was gulped down in a few, hot sips and left for later. I had a finish line I needed to cross. I had work to do before I got there.

The morning of the race it was a cool 49-50 degrees but I knew it would warm up quickly. It only took until mile 2 to get the feeling back in my numb fingers and that was the last I thought about the weather. I had to stare down some mean hills and not just one or two but six, seven, steep and cruel ones. I got to the top of one and just looked out. The sun was coming up and there was a view to see for miles. This is why I do this. When and where else could I have been in this moment.

Looking back at my splits my pace was fast coming up through mile 7 but the hills had taken it out of me and I slowed to some snails pace the last half. I don't know what I was doing on mile 12 except maybe crawling? But none of that mattered since I had no pace goal. I only wanted to defeat the finish line and I did that last Saturday.

Since there aren't many in my age group that ventures out, I placed second in my category with a time of 2:38:38. I was a good 14 minutes behind first place (damn mile 12)! I can at least look at the bright side that the person behind me came in right at 3 hours which put me a good 40 some minutes ahead. It doesn't really matter since all of this is extra. My only wish was to get it done.

Done it is. I'm re-grouping to see what's next.
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