Race #143
Half Marathon #47
South Carolina Half Marathon #34
2018 Race #4
2018 Half Marathon #3
Run Hard Columbia Half Marathon #1

At one point earlier this week, I wondered if I would make it to this race at all. I will talk more about it in my weekly recap but on Tuesday, I managed to slam my foot into the wooden pallet that has been below my freezer in the garage. I thought there was a good change that I had broken the toe. Thankfully, I simply was a bit rough on it.

Since I had not run for several days and my weekly mileage dropped dramatically, I had zero goals for this race. I simply wanted to make it to the finish line without my toe acting up and making me acknowledge that I broke it and would have to take significant time off running. I definitely accomplished that goal.

When packing the night before (we stayed overnight at a friend’s house) I grabbed my normal running gear, sure that I would be okay. Although I may have been okay with my singlet and shorts, the weather finally cooperated and sent quite a chill in the air early in the morning. (Where were you three weeks ago?) I ended up putting the race shirt on over my singlet and running in that. I never run in the race shirt on race day but I made an exception. I ended up getting a little hot but nothing terrible.

We made our way to the start and waited for 7:30 to arrive.

Soon enough we were on our way.

I had no idea what to expect with the course having not studied nearly nothing about the course. I don’t usually make an intense study on a course unless I’m aiming for a PR and even then, I sometimes forget. Turns out, we were in for quite a hilly course.

We first found this out around mile 2.

This doesn’t feel like much but it certainly felt like it. We also overheard the 3:30 pacer talking about how they got to do it twice. I do not envy them.

Since this was early on in the race, both Mom and I still felt good and we continued on running strong and steady.

Somewhere around mile 4 Mom’s shoelace came untied. We stopped so that she could tie it and quickly continued on. It’s frustrating but it didn’t slow us down much. This might have been the time when her second shoe came untied. The first came untied earlier in the race and then around this spot the second came undone.

I grabbed Gatorade at the next water stop. It was at this point that Ryan, my step-brother-in-law, passed us and said hi. We ended up swapping places several times throughout the rest of the race as we had to slow a few times.

At this water stop Mom also stopped to tighten her laces since they had started to come loose again. Thankfully, she had no further issues with the laces.

Mile 1: 8:27
Mile 2: 8:58
Mile 3: 8:45
Mile 4: 8:47
Mile 5: 8:34

The middle section held nothing spectacular. We weaved in and out of various neighborhoods as well as navigated through various rolling hills, nothing too terrible.

Towards the end of this middle section, I did start to notice my left heel. For a few weeks it has been bothering me off and on. I’m hoping that I can ward off full blown plantar fasciitis although that’s not what Brad, the guy who does ART said this last time.

Mile 6: 8:52
Mile 7: 9:43 (This may have been a hill or a time we had to slow to walk.)
Mile 8: 8:35

The last five miles brought the shift for me from running the race to pacing Mom. She started to struggle, especially with the hills. This helped me take my mind of my normal end of race fatigue as well as tackle the final lovely hill in mile 11.

We kept plodding away and finally made it to the last mile. Just before that I told Mom that we had just a little over a mile left. She told me that she wanted to walk the last mile. Nope. She stayed focused and we finished strong, running down the street with the state house in the distance. (All sorts of YIG vibes this whole trip.

Mile 9: 9:02
Mile 10: 9:45
Mile 11: 8:50
Mile 12: 9:24
Mile 13: 9:06
.1: 7:45
Final Time: 1:58:30

Posing in the same spot we had all of our YIG students. 🙂

This was a fantastic race. I’m glad I got to run it.