Another year has gone by and Kristen and I ran the Long Beach Marathon again, well Kristen did, I ran the half this time. Kristen absolutely CRUSHED her time from last year (which was her first marathon) by 8 MINUTES! Last year she ran a 3:33 and yesterday, even after falling, she blasted through the finish line at 3:25 flat. Amazing. Especially since around mile 10 she got tripped up and fell to her knees and hands. She got cut up a little, but everything seemed fine until she hit the hill at Cal State Long Beach. That's when she realized that she pulled a muscle in her upper quad. Apparently that didn't stop her from running really fast.
I, on the other hand, did not PR. In fact, I thought I was going to run really slow since I haven't really had the time (or maybe desire) to train properly to PR. But as anybody who has run knows that the energy of a race helps you when you need it most. I was less than 5 minutes slower than my last half which really surprised me. I thought I'd run a 2:15 or even a 2:20, but I came in just over 2:09. Not good, but still much better than I thought. So I'm going to reward myself to day with an iPhone 4! As a side note, I will never again eat one of those damn chewy Shot Blok things during a race. Training runs maybe, but never during a race. I had a few in my pocket and at 1 hour I pulled a couple out and started chewing just as I was coming into a water station. I damn near choked to death trying to get those things down and I was trying not to look like a tool while doing it. It sucked the energy out of my run for a few minutes as I really slowed down to get that crap out of my throat and teeth. Bad, bad idea.
Anyway, Kristen is now feverishly trying to register for Boston, but the site is mobbed with entrants. Cross your fingers.
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