Goal accomplished...

Which one? I'm sure you'll figure it out quickly.

This morning, my wife and I decided to go for a run. We moved our long runs to Friday because we both generally have more daylight hours available to do a run on Friday's as opposed to Sunday. We set out with the intention of running double digits. My longest run until this morning was 10 miles.

We walked out the door a little late. I left not feeling very good. My stomach was in knots. I tried to eat this morning because I knew I'd need fuel for the run. Bad idea, apparently. We brought a little bit of food (Shot Blocks and Gu Gels) with us. I was hesitant to put anything else into my body other than water for fear of making the stomach ache worse, but if I needed energy, I needed energy.

As we approached the starting line, I decided that today was the day. The first Elicker Superfluous Half-Marathon. Why that name? Because I didn't map out a 13.1 mile route. We just ran, zig zagged up and down streets, and ran in cul-de-sacs. Thank God for Garmin watches.

We set off, and I didn't have my normal pep in my step, so to speak. I imagine it was the stomach ache, but who knows. My legs felt ok, but I didn't feel like an athlete. I would say that I leave on about 30% of my runs feeling AWESOME. Today wasn't one of those days even though I was hoping real hard that it was. Oh well.

I decided that a 12 minute mile pace would be comfortable. I mean, lets be honest... I only started training for this run 8 weeks ago. That's not a lot of time to go from struggling to finish a 4 mile run to a half-marathon runner.

We're fortunate to live at the top a "hill." The beginning of our runs are typically down hill for at least a quarter mile. It gives us time to warm up and what not. Today, I would say that the first mile and a half were mostly down hill with the exception of one larger hill that we ran up. If it wasn't down, it was certainly flat. Great warm up.

Mile two comes and I hit a wall. Not hard, maybe we'll call it a fence. It's not a high fence. In fact, I feel like I'm just about over it, but as I'm coming down the other side, my shorts get caught and now I'm hanging off the side by my underwear.

As it goes, my wife and I never have a good run on the same day. If she's struggling, I'm feeling fantastic. If I'm struggling, she's killing it. Today was one of her days.

By the time I finally got off the fence, we were about three and a half miles in, and running down hill again. I know this isn't going to be a great day for me. I'm barely a quarter of the way through this thing and I've already hit one wall. In order to add some distance, we went to a small park with a running loop that we've done before. I hate this park. On the plus side, there are water fountains and I need to fill my bottle up.

At about mile 6, I realize that my shorts are falling off my butt. These shorts are wrestling shorts that I got in high school. Junior year. That means they're about 8 years old. They have no elastic left, so I just use the string to tie them tight and keep them up. But the knot is impossible to get out! I had to stop running for about a minute to get the knot out, otherwise I'd be running with a water bottle in one hand, and my shorts in the other.

When we started up again, my legs felt like they'd gained 100 pounds a piece. I've heard people say that their legs felt heavy. I'd never had this experience before. Today I got that experience. It's horrible. Luckily it only took a quarter mile to get the lead out.

The rest of the run was relatively uneventful. We added chunks of road here and there. I ran out of water and one point, luckily we were only about a mile from that park, so we went back there, I filled up my bottle again, and we got back to it.

At this point, we're guessing about distances. I'm trying to look at the watch and figure out where we need to go to get our 13.1. We ran the park loop again, then a loop around the local high school. As we turned on our last mile home, we realize, we're just about exactly a mile from home. We've taken this risk before and ended up short of our goal distance. I'm not about to let that happen to me today. Once I'm home, I'm home. I'm not turning around to get an extra half mile, and there's no way I'm gonna go back out in the next few weeks. I'm feeling pretty horrible at this point. There's another really small park on the way home with a gravel running path, so we did that.

On that path, I ran out of water. My hamstrings started to burn worse than anything I've ever felt before. My calves were also on fire. I punched my water bottle out of frustration knowing that I was only about a half mile from finishing. I sped up to just get it over with, but I didn't have it, so I slowed down to a crawl again. At this point, I'm extremely frustrated thinking that I may not finish this thing. And I'm so close I can almost see the finish.

We have two turns left to get onto our street. I'm a quarter mile away from being done, and I'm cramping up big time. I wait for the first turn, then I put my foot on the gas. I'm not in a sprint by any means, but my pace is back up. I turn the second corner and spot a speed limit sign. I run to it, look at my watch. 13.01 miles. Not yet. I look for another land mark. Another sign. I run to it, look at my watch. 13.06. Damnit! Ok, one more. A tree this time. I figured something organic might help. 13.10.

I did it.

Tears start rolling down my face. I can't control my emotions (If you were at my wedding, you know this runs in the family). My wife is telling me how proud of me she is. I have to bend over to breath I'm so choked up at this point. But I did it. In 2 hours, 26 minutes, and 33 seconds. 11:11 per mile. I blew away my 12 minute mile goal. I did it.