Half Marathon #4 of 2011 Race Report

I completed my fourth 13.1 mile journey of the year yesterday, with the lovely Linda from Mom Running from Cancer (HERE). It was one year ago, when Linda and I had our first bloggy meet up at the Crazylegs Classic 8K last April. We've had so many great times on our journey since then.

Linda and I met up on Madison's south side and headed out on the Capital City Trail for a 13.1 mile out and back loop. The forcast was for the mid-50's. The clouds rolled in as I entered the parking log. We headed out with our handheld water bottles, shorts/skirts and layered on top.

About three miles in, we stopped at the campground so that I could use the restroom. I had drank an entire 32 oz bottle of G2 that morning. I woke up with Charlie Horses all night long. I feared I was overly dehydrated.

We ran about an hour straight into the wind and dark clouds. There was no rain in the forcast though. At an hour we had a gel stop and walked a bit, and then ran a little further to our turnaround point ... a sign we pointed out on the trail just past the 6.5 mile mark. As we turned around, we expected the wind to be at our backs, but it really wasn't for much of our journey back to our vehicles. Not quite sure how that works, but only made us stronger! The sun did come our for much of our second half and it really warmed us up. We continued running, with a few boughts of walking and returned safely to our cars in just over 2:10 ... a nice, easy, FUN pace! We cheered and hugged as we approached the parking lot. We passed some TNT members coming from the opposite direction that cheered for us too. They were headed out for a twenty miler. It's always a nice run with Linda.

Half Marathon #4 is in the books!

4 down -- 8 to go! ....