Half a Maraton

I hate this. This is good for me. Running is a metaphor for life. It keeps me moving, out of ruts, continuously going forward. It forces me to be in the moment yet keep my eye on the goal. It makes me feel powerful. It is the bomb.

Oh look, the beach.

 

Am I hallucinating? MUST GO FASTER!

This is the mile 7 marker! Say what? I am only already just past halfway! This sucks I'm doing great! And these folks demonstrate the best of humanity by giving out free sips of Gatorade and packets of astronaut-style goo.

The runners thank these volunteers by tossing their trash along the road.  Yay for exercise, so screw the earth?

Hungry?  Have a snickers.  (Seriously, next time I'm bringing a Snickers.)

Next time I'm also dressing up more for the occasion, like this chick.

Now that I'm at the finish, I shall sprint, looking forward to how much my body will hate love me for it tomorrow. I'm taking suggestions on captions for this picture.

1. Get outa my way! Nobody's around! That's good right?
2. Thank goodness this is over! This is was so great and now I'm DONE!

Please leave more captions in the comments.

***

Wow, that was amazing. Awesome. So fun. Only good feelings!!
Thank you to my friend Rachel being one of my inspirations to run. This is my second half marathon, but she runs them all the time.

The end of this past season of The Bachelorette really sums up how I feel about this experience:

Now onto the next race. Want to join me? I do recommend this, believe it or not.

Also believe it or not, I'm going to do the FULL MARATHON

...as soon as I eat this entire box of cheez-its.