Columbia Gorge Half-Marathon

Yesterday, Phil and I ran the Columbia Gorge Half-Marathon.  It is dubbed as being the most scenic marathon in the country.  And let me tell you... it didn't disappoint.

It also didn't disappoint in the hills.  Pretty sure after 2 miles, I looked at Phil and said, "This is hard" in kind of a whiny voice.  And near the end, you come across a pedestrian bridge and you can see the finish line... and they route you AWAY from it to do another loop.  Mean.  At that point, I wanted to sit down right there and give up.  But I didn't.  Hooray for me.

I started off the race with kind of a outlook on it.  I knew it was going to be hard and so everytime I had to run uphill, I felt like couldn't run.  And everytime I ran downhill, I knew I would have to trun around and run uphill, so I felt like I couldn't do it.  Excellent attitude.

That's me running in the blue.

But I realized about half-way, why my attitude was so bad:

We signed up for this race in March/April.  After we started training, we got bad news, after bad news, a little good news, more life stress.  Possible cancer bug-bite.  Work stress.  Life stress (which I am not ready to get into yet but if we are close, odds are you know about it).  A little hope.  Lump in the neck.  Maybe cancerous lump in the neck.  Still don't know about lump in the neck.

And while I should have been training, my thyroid tanked and I had a hard time sitting up.  I wasn't able to train.  I got in some runs when I could, but it wasn't nearly where it should have been.

I wasn't prepared for the race, and I wasn't prepared for the life stress I have had thrown my way.  And I have kind of had it with all the uphill stuff.

I am hoping that this race has book-ended some uphill challenges I have had recently.  That is the end in a chapter of hardships.  So I ran (and walked) hoping this would be the end of that hard chapter.  And that I will be able to move forward into more of a normal newly-married-26-year-old life where I can plan dinner parties and get cocktails with my friends or something.

We finished JUST over the goal I had set.  By seriously less than 2 minutes over.  SO CLOSE.  We are looking for another race in the next couple of months.  The race was beautiful and it was such a wonderful experience to run it with my husband and have him encourage me along the way.  It is funny because before the race I was pumping Phil up, telling him he could do it.  And during the race, he was the one encouraging me.  Good team.