victory! success! hooray!

OK, Mom, this post is mostly for you, ‘cause you’re not on Facebook, where I’ve already posted most of these…

We had an uneventful drive down to San Diego on Saturday…

[Grin.]

 

First we checked into our hotel room at the Sheraton, and admired the view. We noticed we had a great view of airplanes coming in to land at the San Diego airport…

So naturally, I played with the zoom lens on the new camera.

Which was loads of fun.

If you didn’t know there was a runway right there, you might be concerned…

Finally, we left our rooms, and went over to the Expo to pick up our bib numbers and tech shirts and look at all the fun running gear for sale. I couldn’t resist a couple of t-shirts from RunningDivas.com – one says “pain is the test” on the front, and “yes, it hurts” on the back. Heh heh.

Eventually, we made our way back to our room, where we laid out everything in preparation for the next morning…

 

I set my phone to wake me up at O’-Dark-Early…and we went to bed by 9:15 pm.

GOOD MORNING!!

We got on the first bus to leave for the race start. We sat in the tippy back like the truants that we are.

The race started at Cabrillo National Monument, at the end of a long peninsula that curls around the San Diego Harbor. It was still plenty dark out.

…but crowded with several thousand runners! 80’s pop music blared on the PA system.  The race didn’t start until 7, so we had plenty of time to shiver, use the portapotties, and inveigle complete strangers into taking our picture.

Finally the sky lightened. Someone sang the national anthem, and we were OFF!

 

The first couple of miles took us through National Park Service territory and a beautiful cemetery. We were up on a ridge, so we had water views on either side – ocean to our left, bay to our right.

Then we cruised through a beautiful residential neighborhood, where our presence provided an excuse for endless block party of folks cheering us on. Yay! Thus encouraged, the miles flew by.

Here I am in line at the john.

We took a bathroom break at mile four, just as we were about to leave that peninsula and head across the harbor. It was overcast, which was awesome, because that meant that it never really cracked about 68 degrees. Very comfortable running weather!

We definitely lucked out with this weather. It might not be postcard perfect, but it sure beat the 80 degrees and humidity of what I’d been training in!

Somehow we got to mile 10 in seemingly no time at all, but as you can see from the display, we’re two hours in.

Aww! Thanks!

We had heard there was a nasty hill at mile 11, but – Vermont-trained – I kept waiting for the hill to start and when it did, I accelerated up it. We turned a corner, and lo and behold, Balboa Park – where the race finished – beckoned in the distance.

The last half mile or so was an absolute blast – cheering crowds, mayhem, music, cowbells – I could not help but speed up, grinning ear to ear. Lynn and I crossed the finish line together at 2:30:35, which was a good handful of minutes faster than I had anticipated.

 

Yay! I completely met my basic goals, as outlined by my training guru, Jeff Galloway: to finish a) in the upright position b) smiling  c) and wanting to do it again.

After we wandered around in search of calories, we found our way to a bus back to the hotel, where we hosed off, donned our shiny medals, and  went in search of lunch.

My fabulous sister-in-law Lynn, who is now my official half-marathon race partner, like it or not. Yay!

Speaking of sisters, Jen, here’s a closeup of that duck behind Lynn’s left shoulder: