Anyone who tries to question the decision of running 13.1 miles on a Saturday morning instead of catching up on sleep can stop now. I already know it's stupid.. but hey, I got a t-shirt out of it.

It was actually a beautiful day to run, dry, little windy, 70s and the sun was out the whole time. I'm so glad I wore my sun glasses.. I swear that course was designed to make sure sun is always shining on the runner's faces. Maybe for better photo ops?

The Cliff's Notes version:

I ran, finished under 3 hours (barely, don't laugh yet), got nasty blisters on both feet and well, finished. That's the important part.

The longer version:

The good news.. my knee didn't hurt and the first 8 miles felt fantastic.. I could have ran a lot longer and faster (I was pacing myself).

The bad news.. the blisters (around mile 9 or so) were really, really painful (technically, still are). I wore coolmax socks in hopes of preventing blisters. Obviously, that didn't work very well. So the next 2 miles or so.. I probably did more walking than running.. but then, as hordes of runners passed me by, I decided to grin and bear and ran the last 2 miles.. not as fast as I would have liked to.. but hey, not many people can run fast with what feels like needles being stuck in their feet. Anyway, I finished and that was my ultimate goal. To see if I can actually do this.

It's actually quite amazing I ran it at all. See, I signed up for this over six months ago.. I had a training schedule in mind and was pretty damn excited about running a decent race. Then I trained.. and I trained.. and I trained some more.. Of course, (this is *me* after all) not even halfway through my training program -- I injured my knee. Badly. Ran a 9 mile-long run in a park.. and it's a route that's nothing but hills.. I guess I wasn't quite ready for that. Or at least my knee wasn't. Over two weeks of zero running (try running when even walking is painful!).. and I had to cut down on my weekly mileage considerably.. Not to mention my average pace plummeted by nearly 2 minutes a mile.. since running a bit faster brought on knee pain.

So why did I run anyway? Good question.

I intended to either cancel my registration or downgrade to a 5K (that I could run even with an achy knee).. but.. well.. at first I was hoping the knee pain would go away and I could get back into training. That didn't happen.. the training I did do wasn't really sufficient (longest run 6 miles and forget about speed work). Then I was just hoping something would prevent the race from happening (yah, I know, that's realistic) so I would have an excuse.. well.. that didn't happen. Then this last week.. not to go into details, but I've had better weeks.. hell.. I don't think I've had many worse weeks.. and well, that kind of took my mind off of it.. until this morning.

I picked up my buddy (he ran it too and finished 3 minutes before me-- his excuse was cramps, I didn't get those, thankfully).. went to the start line.. all a bit in a daze.. gun went off.. people started running.. and well, what the hell, at that point might as well do this thing. So I did.

So see, yes, under 3 hours is a damn lousy time.. but all things considered, I'm amazed I even ran this thing.

Next year: I'll try for the full marathon and this time, maybe, I'll actually train for it.