silicon valley half marathon

i convinced myself to sign up for the silicon valley half marathon at the san jose rock n roll half marathon expo three weeks ago - i figured i could pull it off, and they offered a discount & t-shirt.

this morning 3000 of us gathered in san jose to start out on the trek. i believe 800 people (including four of my friends) were running the full, the rest of us cutting out at 13.1 miles. i was concerned that i'd feel like a wimp quitting at 13.1...but that's not the case. i kinda feel like the smart one 'cause it's stupid to run 26.2 miles (unless you're built for it, which i am not).

tono & i were tryin' to run fast...sub-2 hour half and sub-4 hour full marathons. according to our watches, we both beat it by 10 seconds - we'll see what the chip time is. because he beat 4 hours, i'm supposed to take trapeze lessons...but it's on him to make it possible.

peggy met me at the finish line so we could head over to mile 21 to cheer our friends along. i'd also set up a cooler for our own "water" stop - gatorade, OJ and beer. why beer? at mile 18 in the SF marathon, i was handed a dixie cup of beer...and it was the best tasting beer i'd ever had. i wanted to be able to pass that brilliance forward...and we did. i think only two runners actually took my dixie cups of beer, but several smiled and told me i was nuts. was it worth it? YES! one guy told me it was the best beer he'd ever tasted - brilliance passed forward.

all in all, it was a fun morning - it got hot, so the marathoners weren't as fast as they'd like to have been...but everyone finished. and we didn't have to go anywhere to enjoy another marathon.

(i'm still retired from the full marathon, for the record)