mom's story
This was by far one of my harder trips. I have recently started working part time at Citizens Bank to help with financing my journey and because we were short staffed for the week, I ended up working Friday until about 6pm. This meant a 10 hour drive to Minneapolis from Michigan with very little sleep. Well I made it about half way, slept four hours, then drove the rest of the way. At least its a nice drive, and there was very little traffic. I arrived in Minneapolis on Saturday around noon, registered for the run, and checked into my motel. The motel was not the nicest thing in the world, but it was very cheap and at least it was in a nice area of town, and close to the race, so I felt OK with it. After checking in I headed out to the city and dropped off some info with some of the local restaurants and shops that were open. Hopefully they will follow through on things we discussed, but I will have to wait and see.
After getting a few hours of rest, the race was at 7:13am, which meant waking up around 5:30am, I headed out to the race course. The course start was located near the University of Minnesota. The morning felt nice enough, a little humid but relatively cool. I decided I wanted to pace around 8:24 so I could run a sub 1:50.00 Half Marathon. Prior to the race I met several really cool runners, one girl in line for the bathroom. Gotta love the LONG bathroom lines lol. The pacer for the 1:50 group, Jo, was a nice local runner who has done several of these runs. Everything started off well until after the mile 3 marker when my lungs really started to struggle with the humidity. Needless to say from that point forward my times got progressively slower, and I had to walk from time to time, mainly at the water stations, to make sure I stayed hydrated. For as much as the race was a struggle physically, I was able to hold on and finish. My time was kinda funny since this was my 13th race and a 13.1 mile run, I ran 2 hours 13 minutes and 13 seconds (2:13.13). I guess I should have gone and played the lotto on the way home.
Post race, I spent a few hours walking around the post race party talking to other runners and handing out information on FiftyTwo4Mom. Since the race finish and start were about 8 miles apart from each other (they shuttled us back), I was not able to collect donations from most people, but people seemed really interested in what I am doing and I hope to hear from people on here and facebook. One more race under the belt and the journey continues. Next week I get to stay home for the Crim 10 Mile. Visit our facebook page for pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43848&id=172123116132894
