Run, Mama, run...

An astonishing number of people today had signs saying "Run, [whomever], run!" This seemed strange to me, and slightly passive-agressive somehow, because - what, we needed reminders? It's a footrace. We've got *numbers on our torsos.* But then someone's sign near the end said "Run, Forrest, run!" and I finally caught the Forrest Gump reference, and mystery solved.

So Mama ran, and did pretty decently for the first half-marathon. It was hot, and hilly, and I still was within my target time by several minutes. The most fun moments were finishing the hills around mile five, feeling good still, meeting Dorothy and Renata around mile seven, and really from mile nine on was pretty decent all around. I averaged about an 11 minute/mile pace, which sounds slow, but worked out well over the long run. (Hah!)

People were pretty upbeat, there were tons of water stops where you had to all but defend yourself from eager water-purveyors, and one amazing woman around mile ten stood on the sidelines and said to the runners passing her, "You look so beautiful! You look great! You're doing so well!" and I got a little weepy because she had Track Coach Authority, and I felt beautiful and like I was doing great and like things would be Okay. Which they were! I sprinted the last 100 yards or so, wobbled off into the chute, wolfed down a banana, a bagel, and still and yet more water before Renata and Dorothy nabbed me at the place for meetups. After figuring out that we were stuck in a massive traffic jam because of all the closed streets, we had lunch at an Irish pub and then came home. I took the world's nicest tub and actually feel pretty good.

Renata took some "before" pictures, like the above, and some "during" pictures which are about what you'd expect, minus the momentarily confused guy on the right. We skipped the "after" for reasons of dignity. She was a total trooper, shuttling me around all day from start to middle to finish, and I am so glad to be here doing this fun thing.