Yesterday’s half marathon in Missoula, Montana was great. The race began outside of town on a road that descended for two miles through a heavily wooded area. It sometimes gets very hot in Montana in the summer, so race organizers scheduled a 6 a.m. gun, (or cannon, in this case). It was 52 degrees and the sky was clear and blue. Perfect running weather.Erica and I ran the first five miles together and we saw a bald eagle carrying a fish back to its nest and another bald eagle perched in a treetop just over the race course, perplexedly watching 731 half-marathoners plod by, earthbound and sweaty.
I trained much smarter for the race than I have in the past and as a result I felt good the whole way. I am not a fast runner so I was hoping to finish the race in less than two hours. I ended up doing a little better than I had even hoped and finished the 13.1 miles in 1 hour 54 minutes and a few seconds. That works out to 8:43 per mile, which for me is pretty good. I was very happy with the result.
Next race is a 10-miler in Branford on August 3, then a 12.2-miler in New Haven on Labor Day, and then a 212-mile relay through New Hampshire in mid-September. It is called Reach the Beach and it is the reason I have gotten back into running lately. I am sure I’ll write more about Reach the Beach in future posts.
