The New Year's Half Marathon-January 4th, 2014

The New Year's Half Marathon was a race I ran last year in 2013 and swore I wouldn't do it again because of how bad I froze.  This year I was getting a little peer pressure from my friend, Jonathan Crampton, the RD to sign up and then maybe some more of my friends would too.  I told him I was waiting for a weather forecast.  Something about starting a race when it's 0 degrees outside is just not appealing at all to me.   I told him if I didn't run then I would come volunteer and help out.

About 10 days before the race I started watching the forecast and it was looking better than usual.  In fact 22 degrees for the forecast high of the day was looking way more promising than anticipated, so I went ahead and signed up.  I also encouraged a few of my friends to come join in on the fun.  Isn't that what races are all about, to have fun with other crazy running peeps?

Me, Becca, Josh, London, Monte, Janet, and Robert-all friends in our FB group, Runner's Anonymous, that make me laugh and smile everyday.  It's impossible to get on the FB page on any given day and not have one of these people say something to just make you happy. 

I got to the race start about an hour early thinking since this isn't a chip-timed race we could start basically when we wanted.  Although there was a definite start at 8:00 a.m.  We just kept track of our own time and reported it at the end.  When I arrived there were already a lot of people here and more coming every few minutes.  I got all my photo taking done and out of the way so that I wouldn't have to worry about taking pictures during the run.

Josh and London

with Adrian Toledo, who keeps everyone smiling and having a good time at any race he attends.

Adrian and Carl Grimaud who I met trail running this Fall.

 with Jeff Smith another one I met trail running.

with my very sweet, speedy friend Jenn whom I see often at the gym getting after it and Coach Don Bigger

Galen Garrison, a huge inspiration in running ultra races.  He teaches me much.  Monnica is just super fun!

Robert, Becca, Janet, and Josh showing off their bling after the race was over.  Although we did get our medals before we even ran the race.  I know that's weird but there were only 100 medals ordered and so the RD wanted to give those people who had pre registered their medals first.  Those who signed up on race day will get a medal later.  

Monte and London Riding, Me, Galen

I'm so excited to get to run my first 100 mile race in just 2 weeks with Monte and London being there.  They will be doing the 6 hour event and London may possibly come back and be with me later in the evening.  

Well, after seeing so many running friends, taking pictures, talking way too much, using the bathroom and getting all ready to go we headed outside a little before the rest of the group.  We got about a 20 minute head start and basically there were about 6 of us that stayed together for almost the whole race.  We had a good time together.  It was definitely cold but as long as we were moving it was fine.  Another running FB friend Cindy Hills, joined up with us for a few miles while we were running, since she lived in one of the cities we ran through.  When we got back to the place we started there was pots of chili, baked potatoes, yogurt, and chocolate milk there for us to enjoy.  Sorry, I have no pictures of the food.  Once again I started chatting and visiting with anybody that would talk to me.  I think I have become a bit of a social runner.  I'm still trying to decide if I run these races for the physical or social aspect of them.  Regardless, I have a good time.

 Certainly not a bad time when running with a bunch of people and taking a few potty stops along the way.

I do love a cute little medal, especially now that I have a place to hang medals.  For Christmas my dear hubby made me a really cool rack to hang my medals on.  They no longer are all crammed into a cupboard.

Every time I pull the car into the garage there they are.  It's all my memories of running right there hanging on a wall.  Somebody asked me why not put them in the house on a wall?  Well, I don't know why but me and hubby thought this wall in the garage was just a good spot.

I got all my medals out and wrote on the back of each and every one of them the date of the race, the distance and my time.  I have them hanging in order from left to right of my first race down to the most recent.  It's going to take me a super long time to fill this rack since hubby put 139 pegs in that 10 foot long board.  I started using the whole top part first and then will go to the bottom section when the top is filled.