I ran my first half marathon Sunday morning at 7am in Brandon, Florida. In fact, it was my very first race of any length. It was a beautiful day. My sister Michelle and my niece Jaime came down to join me because they are veteran runners. I was under control pretty much, I’ve heard and read adrenlin and excitement can lead a runner to take off too quickly and then die at the end. I guess I experienced a little of that. My goal was to run an 8 minute per mile pace and for the first 9 miles only two of them exceeded an 8 minute pace all the rest were in the 7:40-7:55 pace. Something happened at mile 10! There were no water stations in any of those miles and I was out of energy and my legs didn’t want to keep the pace. I struggled on the last four miles but still made it in at the time above. I think if I would have stayed closer to the 8 minute pace at the beginning it would have been better but I have no way of knowing. All in all it was a great experience and pretty exciting having my wife Gayle, daughter Lisa, and mom Shirley cheering me on at the finish line. Coming in the last mile I thought it would probably be the last race I ever do but after a couple hours I was already thinking about how to improve my next one! Oh by the way, I finished 8th out of 17 in my age bracket. Jaime finished 3rd in her age bracket!! I was 94th out of 304 over all.

 

Scott