Remembrance

We have a lot to be thankful for which we hardly ever reflect upon.  As the half marathon race approached, I went to church and found myself praying that Lia, and I, would run well.  My prayers were answered, certainly, as we finished the race and were not injured and thus we were blessed and for that I am thankful.  (We both finished the race.)

My other friend had to drop out of the race and for that I am sorry.  But I had helped her train during the spring for a hilly half marathon (the course description talked about gently rolling hills and that always means hills!) where she PR'ed so I was happy for her for that and thankful that she ran well then.  (Training for their HM by going long on hills on the W&OD, with my friend and her husband in April.)

I was apprehensive of breaking two hours the wrong way at the half marathon because of the six HMs I have run, my slowest was my first one in 2004, 1:55:24, and three were sub-1:50.  But that was then and this is now, and now that I'm over sixty I have to get used to all kinds of things like being slower and sorer, being alone for good and never seeing my children again, and stopping work soon enough and leaving the region (it's too expensive to live here if you don't have ample income).  (The 9/11 Run.)

To break 2 hours in a half marathon, which Lia had never done and which was my goal, you have to run 9:09 miles.  Eight days before the race I timed myself in a practice run for the first time in years and ran two miles on the flat W&OD Trail in 18:11, a 9:06 pace, which was a depressing outcome but it was hot and humid that day.  However, at noon on September 11th, three days before the race, I ran hard and well around the Tidal Basin in remembrance of the souls lost at the Pentagon thirteen years earlier (you could see the smoke plume from the airstrike that day from the Tidal Basin), covering the 3K distance in 16:06, a time which was comparable to what I used to be able to do.  (On September 11th, this is what the Pentagon looked like from the Tidal Basin, across the Potomac.  There is a beautiful memorial there now where the plane hit.)