Picking up the Slack - er

Signed up the wife, #12 and myself for the Slacker half marathon in mid June.

About this time of year, 3 years ago, my wife said to me out of the blue one day something along the lines of "I want to run a 1/2 marathon".  I said something like: "good for you, I used to run a bit, maybe I should run with you".

And so we started running, sometimes together, other times not.  We picked out the Slacker because it was almost all downhill - and because neither of us had done any running in many years - we needed all the help we could get.

On race day we did the whole thing together and beat her goal of doing it in 2 hours.  It was fun and we were hooked - the running has continued since.  (Albeit w/ a knee surgery for each of us that forced some time off).

The next year (2010) we did it again - this time with our son.  I went on ahead of them while they ran the first few miles together until he got itchy feet and took off (eventually winning his age group).  I did really well for the first 12 miles - with an elevation drop of about 2200'.  The last mile winds it's way through Georgetown and has some rolling sections.  I don't know exactly how long that last mile took me but I blew up and walked at least a third of it and came to a complete standstill a couple of times.  My legs were shot.  I still finished in 1:36 something - still is my 1/2 marathon PR.

We didn't do it last year - but we are heading back this year and all 3 of us are looking to PR.  Not sure if it will help w/ Pike Peak marathon training but it is about 8 weeks before that - so it shouldn't damper training too much.  I have revenge / redemption and a new PR goal to aim for - especially on that last mile.