First off, let me thank everyone for their supportive messages, texts and tweets this morning! I seriously appreciate it.  13Messages said something on Twitter while on vacation how nice it was to have all of these good people in his pocket while he was away.  I agree with that statement. Running knowing there were people around the country (and world in a couple cases) cheering me on was a nice feeling, so thank you all!

The race itself went extremely well.  I’ll be honest, I was very nervous going into it. I mean, I hadn’t really done much in the past 10 days, which, according to Garbanzo is called tapering and is actually good.

While I don’t have my official time, I believe I was in the range I was hoping. At one point during the race, I kind of did the overall body check-in if you will.  The pace felt good. Was I breathing too hard? Legs hurt? Etc.  And, I realized I was fine. It was an odd feeling really

I did feel bad for my friend though. After he talked me into doing the race, I ditched him at mile 1.5.  He caught up with me after the race.

The fun part of the race – yes, there was a fun part to 13.1 miles – was the costumes. People were dressed up. The guys I ran with for a while were dressed up as a cheerleader and a doctor with the sign “public option”. I followed Wonder Woman for a while. There were the 3 witches, Super Slug, the guy dressed up as a Keg, and a genie to name a few. Oh, can I also just say I live in a beautiful city.  Seeing the sun rise over Mt Hood was amazing as I started the race.  As I ran up the hill from hell, I got to see the city from some of the most spectacular views in the city. Throw in some fall leaves and a gorgeous morning, and it all could have been worse. It could have been raining like it had been two days before.

As a result of the run, I really didn’t have any pictures today. So, I decided to take one tonight.  Consider it a bonus for all of the support.  And you get to see the finisher’s medal I got. I’m sure that’s the first thing you noticed!