I’ve got two kinds of pain.

One is my quads, which are screaming at me for running 13.6 miles and not going anywhere. What’s up with that? They’d like to know!

And then there’s the injury I suffered — AFTER completing my half-marathon, mind you! I looked at the clock and realized I needed to get in the shower if I was going to have time for some lunch before jumping in the car and getting to my doctor’s appointment. But wait, all of this clothing strewn about… and these empty water softener salt bags, I need to carry those upstairs… And so I had my arms full and dropping stuff here and there and I get to the stairs going upstairs and ::BOING:: Pretend there’s a funny noise, which we’ll pretend is the sound my foot made as it slipped off that first step and slammed to the floor. Ouchies!

Figures, I had to hurt myself, but at least it wasn’t DURING my special event! Yes, there was that twinge of OWW from my right knee — I forget now when that was. Oh wait, it must have been right about the one-hour mark, because that’s when I cranked down my speed a notch.

I had started out at 6.5 mph, about a 9:13 pace, which I figured would get me to my destination — half a marathon, i.e. 13.19 miles — within two hours or so. The course record was in the neighborhood of 2:07, so that was safe. And then at the hour mark I brought it down a bit — to 6 mph, a 10:00 pace — and at that rate, well I was looking at the distance I’d covered and figured I’d be OK if they were a few minutes off the record pace.

But damn, they weren’t! I was doing OK, though. And then when the women turned on to Hereford Street — that’s about a mile from the finish — I kicked it up some, back to 6.5. And then when Alevtina Biktimirova put the moves on Dire Tune (who would ultimately win the women’s division), that’s when I cranked it all the way to 7.0.

The men weren’t far behind the women finishing — I think that’s by design — and when Robert Cheruiyot finished at 2:07:46, I hadn’t even noticed, really, but I was hoping like hell that I’d already passed the 13.19 mark. And I guess I had!

And yeah, I was pretty psyched! I’ve never run even half that before, so it was quite an accomplishment for me! Yay me! :)