Race day

While Grant was off in Chicago, I ran my second half marathon. My friend Sarah was the one who talked me into it. We both needed an exercise goal to help keep us in shape. For my last race, I trained by myself. This time, it was so nice to have someone else to run with and it helped me stay motivated and accountable.

The race we chose was the Moab Half Marathon in Moab, UT, which is about 4 hours away. The course runs along the Colorado river with a backdrop of red rock cliffs. It is more of a "nature" run without any spectators along the route.

Up at the crack of dawn.

The start of the race was so chilly. They had ghetto fires in oil barrels to keep us warm.

As you can see from the image above, I had a knee injury to battle. Close to the end of our training, I started to have some painful IT band issues. The IT band is the muscle that runs from your hip to your knee. It manifests in major pain just on the outside of your knee. And it is aggravated by running. So what is the best thing to do, run! Ha ha. It made the race quite painful. I started really feeling pain about halfway through the race. 

Imagine running with this as the backdrop. Stunning.

Sarah ran an amazing race coming in at 2:07. Wow.

Running the last painful steps.

I ran it in 2:23. Not great, but I finished.

On the runners high. So proud.

And our reward...beer from Moab Brewery!

Thanks Sarah for the exercise motivation!