Dan's first half marathon

After supporting me in running the San Francisco full marathon... Dan decided he would like to try doing a half marathon. I was of course VERY supportive of this... and found him a race to run within 10 minutes of his declaration! I also had a training plan whipped up for him 10 minutes later. :))

I can't speak for Dan, of course, but I think there were several reasons he wanted to sign up for a half marathon. First, he wanted a reason to HAVE to run/workout every day. He had been SO busy with work over the summer that he just wasn't taking time to exercise and he didn't like that. Second, he wanted to get back in shape. And, lastly, I think he wanted the challenge of having to run farther than he'd ever run before. And, seeing people of all ages run and finish the half and full marathon in San Francisco was inspiration.

The race I chose and he agreed to do was in 6 weeks. Yikes! Most people that have never run more than 4.5 miles would choose a race 12 weeks out... so they could get proper training in. But, we wanted to choose something in September when the weather would still hopefully be nice. And, I figured with the shorter training... he might not get bored with "running" before the race and stick to the plan.

The longest Dan had ever run before this training plan was 4.5 miles. And, he used to hate running. But, Dan finally got a taste of the runner's high... and after building up to a 10 mile run the week prior to the race, he declared he LOVED running and and his long runs on the weekends. I think I shed a little tear! Ha! Not only did he start to love running... but he also lost weight and got quite slim. Now, I usually get much leaner when training... but I also typically gain about 5 pounds. Granted, my clothes all become a little loose... I guess it's true that "muscle weighs more than fat". But, he got both lean AND lost weight. Men have it so easy - I swear!

Anway... race day arrived. We all woke up at 6:30am and left the house by 7am. His race started at 9:30am (what a great start time! I'm used to the awful 5:30-7am start times!), and we needed to arrive by 9am so he could pick up his race packet. Now, if it would have been me running the race, I would have noted the address where I was supposed to pick-up my race packet... but in typical Dan fashion, we arrived... and after spending 20 minutes of driving around trying to figure out where the starting line, etc. was, we found it. I was seriously nervous he was going to miss it. But, he pulled through! Whew!

We cheered Dan on from 100 meters after he crossed the starting line and about 50 meters before the finish line. Had we arrived earlier and gotten more acquainted with the course/town, I think we would have been able to cheer him on from a few more locations, but it all worked out and was fine. Also, it's not exactly easy to take 3 little kids with you on a race chase in a town you are not familiar with at all, by yourself! But, the kids REALLY LOVED seeing their daddy running a race and so did I!!

Dan did fantastic! Especially for this being his very first race, the longest he'd ever run, only six weeks of training and constant 25-45mph winds. Outside of the crazy winds... the weather couldn't have been more perfect for a half marathon... low 60's at the start. mid/high 60's at finish and cloudy.

Dan finished 13.1 miles in 2:06:09, which equaled a pace of 9:52 minutes per mile. I was SO PROUD of him! And, now he's looking for his next half marathon... and working on building his speed! YAY, DAN!!