13.1 what?

Yep, it's the number of miles in a half marathon.
It's also the miles I RAN YESTERDAY.
 (without stopping under the blistering sun in the wet heat along the shores of Rockport and Gloucester, MA on 43 year old legs/knees/and feet. Wow, that's a buildup!)

I have been basking in the awesomeness of completing this race since yesterday at 11:30am, currently I'm basking in some IcyHot, Aleve, and a little Jack Daniels.

I'll admit, I was lured by the route.  Check it out!  It was all along the water -- and made me think:  nice Atlantic breezes, cool ocean air, gorgeous views.  Well, only one of those thoughts was correct.  The views were spectacular.

Here's some things I learned/or observed/

and will share on running a half marathon

• You will sweat a lot.  PROFUSELY.
• Anything mounted to your body, like an ipod sleeve, will slip.
• It's perfectly acceptable to pour large volumes of water over your head.
• You may start to obsess about someone running ahead of you (there was a girl in a NESCAC shirt who I swear was my childhood running friend Lisa Bragdon)  Guy with muddy sneaker was another one I began to create a backstory for.  It's fun and both people got me through several miles, thanks!
• You may convince yourself that your GPS system is malfunctioning. Clearly its turned itself off.  I must be at mile six by now.
• You must suffer through any bad song on a your playlist -- so have that thing fine tuned.
• You are probably not in last place.
• You will find that ocean roads are gorgeous because there are no obstructions to viewing the beach, immediately afterwards you will realize that these obstructions usually mean SHADE.
• You will long for shade.
• You may ask young children to squirt you with garden hoses, you should ask nicely.
• You will notice that there are way less walkers in a 13.1 mile race than a 5K - who wants to walk 13 miles?  Nobody.
• People who have made signs and are standing on sides of roads are good people, smile at them, if you can.
• As in any race, kids are the most fun to take water from, try to take water from a child.  It will bring you good running karma.
• Crossing any finish line is a huge accomplishment.  Savor it.

So here's me at the finish.  Basking in my awesomeness is what I labeled this FB post. Oh, my time: 2hrs 22 minutes -- that's just under 11minutes per mile.  Not fast, but respectable for me.  I wish my lead up to this race was a bit sexier.  That I could say I'd been training for it for months, with a BIG RED X on a date way out in the future, but that's not true.  I signed up for it on Monday. But that's not to say I haven't been training HARD AND STEADY for months.  Just not for this particular race.  I'd been adding distance to my long runs pretty consistently for 5 weeks now and was up to 12 for this weekend's run.

I thought, hell, if I'm gonna run 12 miles I may as well try for 13 and get a medal or some hardware for it.  I saw this race and booked it.  In hindsight, I wish I'd have taken pictures while I was running, but that may have caused cardiac arrest.  For real, it was hot!