Evergem Half Marathon

I ran my first official half marathon (2nd time running 13.1 miles).

I decided Friday that I was for sure going to do it.  It was up near Gent, but we had to leave early to pick-up Kherington's new bike (see separate post).  In the end we ended up arriving about 1.5 hours before I could even register and that was with a pit stop at a playground to let the kids get some wiggles out.

It was funny when I did register.  I paid my 10 Euros and then they handed me a slip of paper to fill out.  I then had to take it to a separate counter to get my number.  Well, I tried going 5 minutes early since the guys was just sitting there with everything already set up.  He pointed to the sign saying it would open at 1:15pm then sat there doing nothing until the time came.  Really?  Yes, that is typical Belgium customer service.

Well, I got my number and changed into my running clothes.  We watch the kid 1k run...kids have the funniest faces when they run.  As more and more people arrived, I kinda started second guessing myself.  Everyone seemed to be dressed down in hard core running gear.  A little intimidating. Here I am ready to go:

I put myself in the middle of the pack to start.  I wouldn't do that again.  More towards the front would have been nice.  The first mile or two I felt like I was going pretty slow moving in and out of people trying to get to a comfortable pace.  The run was out on country roads which was nice, however some roads really stunk of manure.  More motivation to run faster.  The roads were closed down so every now and again I'd end up with a car on my tail.  I wasn't a huge fan of that either.  AND there were a lot of bicyclist out for joy rides.  If I didn't have to run around them it would have been pretty cool...I mean how often do you see an old grandpa on a cruiser in a button up shirt and sweater tied around his neck.  Pretty awesome.

Back to the run.  I learned a couple other things: (1) I don't know how to drink water/Gatorade from a cup while running - the first drink stop I ended up with Gatorade splashed all over my face...very sticky, and (2) almonds are not a very good mid run snack - I usually eat a date ball but I didn't have any so I grabbed some almonds instead.  Well, they stuck to my teeth so I ended up trying to pick them out.

I felt fine during the run, but didn't think I'd break the 2h mark which was my goal.  The last 300m loop around and with 100m left I would see the clock was at 1h 57m.  Pretty exciting!  BUT the guy in front of my stopped running as soon as he crossed under the arch and the finish line was 100 feet or so ahead and were in the shoot so I couldn't comfortably go around him.  That made for an anticlimactic ending.  But I still finished in 1h 57m 43s.  That's a 9 minute mile pace for 13.1 miles and since the first 2 were slow I must have been running a good pace.

After the race you are supposed to turn in your number (they are made of rubber so they can reuse them year to year) they give you a treat back complete with sausage and beer (pretty sure it's not like that in the US).