Back in March of this year I publicly declared my goal to run in a 1/2 marathon at the end of the summer. I registered for a race on August 8th and have been training all summer. I had some good stretches of training and some times where I was less faithful.
Every single time I went for a training run I recorded the data on
www.buddyrunner.com/jacob and also updated my status on twitter and facebook to keep myself accountable to my online community.
Yesterday was the day of the race and I'm pleased to report that I survived! This is without any question the longest distance I have ever run at 13.1 miles. I am sore everywhere and even a day later my legs still feel like jelly.
We had to meet at the finish line at 4:45am to be shuttled in school buses into Provo canyon up South Fork Road. Being on the first bus up I had to wait in the cold and dark for two hours until the race started at 7am. The whole course was beautiful and peaceful as we would through Provo canyon along the river.
I estimate that there were over 3000 runners and this was a different type of runner than I'm used to seeing in my 5K and even 10K races in the past. These were serious runners. No baggy basketball shorts, a lot of heart monitors, and GPS tracking watches.
My wonderful wife Ami, son Simon, and parents were at the finish line along with my sister Shannon and her family. It was really great to have so much support. They had watermelon, pancakes, and granola bars for the runners at the finish line, but my dad brought me a couple of snickers bars (that or he happen to have a couple on it at the time) and a good thing too because I was weak and famished.
I finished in 1 hour 52 minutes and 33 seconds which is about 25 minutes faster than I had hoped for. This put me in 502nd place overall and 32nd in my age group 25-30.
All around a very satisfying experience!
This weekend we traveled to Rock Springs WY to visit family. Saturday night we decided to take a small trip down Jacob memory lane. We drove over to "my side" of town and went through my old neighborhood. As to my house (where I spent the first 18 years of my life) I'm glad to report that they have a huge garden... other than that they seem slightly trashy to me. 
We drove all around the area and generally I would say the condition of things has improved. We stopped quickly at a small little park not far from the Civik Center where we would often play as kids. This was the only park within bike distance that didn't require crossing a major road and thus we were there a lot playing in the bushes and trees more than the playground equipment which has been replaced since. Just for good measure Ami and I hid a geocache at the park. We entered it online Saturday night around 11pm and by 12:04am someone who goes by Dr.Tom had already found it :) Here is the link to the geocache.
