half

of a marathon. done as of saturday.
for 13.1 miles, ben loved his life and I wanted to die.
but he's also a physical activity sadist, so it all makes sense.

we did a trail run (think mountain bike trail: roots, stumps, steep climbs and descents), not really because we I wanted to, but the race was a saturday (homegirl's married to a pastor--sundays are busy), and it was three miles from our house.

so trails it was.

pre-race, we had set our goal time based on a pavement to trail conversion formula. but after a couple of our early splits, there was kind of a non-verbal agreement that we could maybe push to get under two hours. near the end I knew it would be close, but just could not go faster (at this point, there were a lot of inner conversations like "you will be so mad if you knew you could run faster" and "you have given birth twice, rachel. buck up.").

we crossed at 2:00:15.
I know. You think I could have come up with 15 seconds somewhere...
but mile 13 seemed to last forever.

sweet ben stayed my pace besides a couple dramatic (me? never.) "I can't do this" moments. and maybe next year he can run at his pace--I'm happy to just cheer.

the weather was perfect, the trails were beautiful (at one point sevenish deer ran by...my mind wasn't really in working 'count the deer' order, all I wanted to do was ride one to the finish), and it's done.

in the middle of the race, if asked, I would have said, "absolutely not. never again." but funny how quickly you forget the misery you were just in--a couple minutes after, we were already talking about our next one.

which will be on flat pavement.

*photos courtesy Aunt Katie the Superfan

*sign courtesy Grandma, Jonah, and Thatcher