Spring Fever Half Marathon

Contrary to the name, our half marathon last weekend was anything but Springy.  In fact, it was flat out cold and windy.  Jill, Steve, Bob, my girlfriend Sarah and I all headed out to the race and were ever so grateful that we had a car to huddle in right up until the gun went off.

With the temps hovering around 25 degrees and the windchill somewhere below that we all had that brief thought of, "why are we doing this?"  Of course all of us are hard core runners so we didn't really let that thought stew for too long.  We bundled up, gave the littles to Memaw, Papa and Aunt Kathy and got ourselves in the game.  If the weather wasn't cold enough, Bob forgot his running Vibrams so about 20 minutes to the start he decided to go completely barefoot.  Yes, you read that right.  I have the pictures to prove it.

The race was wonderful.  Once we got onto the trail and out of the exposed wind, the temps and running conditions were just perfect.   While Bob did his own thing, Sarah, Jill, Steve and I hung together for the first several miles.  We had been told that the Spring Fever Half was one of the hardest halves with an elevation gain of several hundred feet in last 4 miles of the race.  I saw the map, but until you see it on your legs and lungs at mile 9 its hard to put in perspective.  Miles 9-11 were literally all up hill.  No breaks, just pure elevation gain.  I am proud to say that I ran the entire thing and felt strong.  It was a huge accomplishment to power past over 30 people on that hill.  Thank you jogger and children!

The downhill victory mile made it even sweeter and I pulled in right at 2:08 on the clock.  Jill, Sarah and Steve were right behind me and of course the barefoot wonder beat us all.  The best part of the day though was when Lily ran out to Gramma Jill and they crossed the finish line together.  Lily Bear even got a victory water bottle and cookie!

What a great race with the greatest group of runners!

On to the next!