My first half marathon

Yesterday I achieved a life long accomplishment by completing a half marathon, here is a picture of me with my biggest fan, my wife, after the finish.

I had planned on walking the first mile to warm up my torn calf muscle but could not because I did not want to get in the way of the runners behind me so I ran the first half mile then walked until the two mile mark. My leg felt good so I started running a little and alternating some walking. Here I am walking on Martin Luther King Blvd.

Once I got into the Parkway and my leg still felt good I set my interval timer to one minute run and one minute walk and continued on all the way through the parkway back onto Martin Luther King and made the turn onto St. Elmo St. which was the ten mile point. I was concerned about not making the cutoff time but at that point I was safe and my leg was still OK so I decided to run for one mile and walk one minute which I did until there was only one mile to go. Here is a picture of me entering Cedar Beach just after crossing Hamilton St.

With one mile to go I decided to keep running as I felt good, just at the entrance to the stadium I felt a little stab in my calf so I walked about fifty yards and then ran/limped in to finish the race.






Here I am just before the finish line at J. Birney Crum Stadium. My chip time was 2:39:10, a few weeks ago I was hoping for 2 hours or a bit longer but I am still happy that I finished and that I am reasonably well.







After the race I celebrated with one of my other fans, my daughter Jessica,
by having a few Black and Tans.



I was very thankful that my daughter and her husband Steve came up to the Lehigh Valley from Tampa Florida just to watch me run and my son Joseph also came home to watch and take videos even though he had to make a final presentation for one of his MBA classes the next day.

Today I felt a little stiff and my calf is sore but other than that I feel fine, I had a good time during the race and I enjoyed the training along the way. The race directors put on a great event and I will definately be back again next year.