The Madison Half Marathon on May 27 was a lot of fun. You can see in the photo above that my time was 2:13:21. That's 10 minute and 15 second miles. I am very happy with that as a first time half marathoner. It really helped to have friends and family cheering me on along the way. Here you can see Lydia sitting on the grass cheering for me .
The Madison Marathon was very well organized. There were a handful of hills but they were spread out enough that they weren't a problem. Lots to see along the way to make it an enjoyable run. I received a medal for finishing.
The following weekend, on June 2, I walked a marathon for
Walk Wisconsin and that took me about 6 hours and 15 minutes. It rained for a couple of hours and the wet feet (even with an extra pair of socks at the 13 mile point) made the last 7 miles or so pretty uncomfortable. I would have enjoyed it more had my feet not gotten so wet. I'm still glad I did it however because I know that I can finish a marathon now.
Lydia's last day of kindergarten is tomorrow. The graduation ceremony was last week. Mom had more tears on graduation day than on the first day of school. Below is a thank you gift I made for her teacher. I got the idea from Somerset Life magazine and the owner of a local craft studio. I wrote a thank you note on the inside of the strip of decorative paper that is wound around the spool.
After the marathon last Saturday, I took most of the week off to recuperate and got back to running on Friday. I enjoyed an hour massage on Friday afternoon and got back to business on Saturday with a 12-miler. I absolutely love my new amphipod hydration belt to help keep me hydrated on the longer runs. The bottles snap on and off without much effort which is handy when you want to keep moving.
