Year Two Day One Hundred and Eighty - The Barrie Half Marathon

Dear all

Today was an EPIC day: Karla and I were competing the Barrie Half Marathon! The weather was perfect - not too hot with a sprinkling of rain to cool the air..... when we arrived at 7:30am - things were already starting to get busy at the start (and finish) City Hall. 

Here we are pre-race... just off to collect our kit and time-chip. 

And here we are at the start... starting to get nervous.. 

There were hundreds of people running and I was unsure how I would do ( 21km is far), but my little I-shuffle was full of tunes and all you can do, is hope for the best.

And we're off! I felt great, I immediately tagged behind the 1hr:30minute pacer, he seemed to know what he was doing. 

I was feeling good... but my goodness this was a tough course. I hadn't actually run a half marathon in a few years so was a little out of my depth.. and the course turned out to be VERY hilly. Although I (weirdly) like hills ( good opportunity to run past people), I was not quite mentally prepared for the frequency and gradient that we encountered... nevertheless, I battled on and and only counted a couple of girls ahead of me after we turned back on ourselves at the half way point. 

What made this race even more interesting, is that half the field were running the Half mara 'as a relay'!!!! So after 10km, this (really fast guy) in front of me, dropped out and was replaced by a another (really fast) guy! Why didn't we think of that!

Anyway, at 17km, I went into tunnel vision due to the hitting of 'the wall' (nasty) and literally sprinted towards the finish. I did this *thinking* there were no more hills... 

But look at the final stretch up to the finish line - a flipping MASSIVE hill. Yuk. I *fell* over the finishing line, and preceded to nearly barf over two stewards. I didn't fortunately. A nice man escorted me over to a nice white tent where a nice lady called Melinda gave me a banana and a massage. 

I am still yet to confirm my time - I am thinking around 1hr 35 mins ( I was too delirious to check), and certainly first lady in my age group, maybe 4th overall? Not sure (due to relay entrants). Karla also did brilliantly! She beat her PB and got under 2hrs!!!!! 1hr 59 hurray!!!!

 It was awesome and now I am exhausted!!!! Karla and I went straight to the spa for a gorgeous afternoon relax *bliss*. Thank you Jay for coming out to support us too ( Darren would have come but the 5:30am start was a little too early!). We did it!

And in other news:

The wonderful Dam Pub in Thorbury was on TV!

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/ontv/shows/you-gotta-eat-here/episode.html?titleid=265117&episodeid=265117