2hr 13min 22sec

We were up early and had breakfast while it was still raining outside but it stopped by the time we were loading into the car to drive over to Pasadena. Kerrianne was hoping we'd get a parking spot in the parking structure so she could stretch out where it was dry but no such luck so while she went to find a dry spot I walked around a bit to loosen/warm up. I found a few folks from work were starting to arrive as well. It was nice to feel like I knew a few people.

Kerrianne and I walked over to the start area and checked things out. I was pretty good with just walking around and keeping loose, my beautiful wife on the other hand is pretty serious about things and checked her bag and headed to starting chute. With a kiss I said, "See you at the end." I hung out and chatted with the folks from work, next thing I knew there was an announcement to line up so they all headed over and I still had to check my bag with sweats so I'd have something dry after the race.

By the time I got into place I was quite a ways back from the start line.


Looking pretty good and feeling relaxed before the start.


As I waited for the start I did get a few comments on the floves. Ranging from, "Really? You're going to run in those?" to "Are those comfortable? I've been wanting to check those out." My response was always, "I had knee pain then I started running in them and it's gone away, of course there was some soreness in using different muscles but I was able to work through that. I'm good as long as there is no knee pain."

Flove with the timing chip.


At the start I did wonder what I had gotten myself into. My left Achilles was sore and I was favoring it for the first few miles but I was able to get a rhythm and felt good. Kerrianne had warned me that she tends to go out too fast so I made a conscious effort to make sure I didn't do that and just kept it steady and still found myself passing a lot of people. About mile 4 my Achilles loosened up and I felt no pain from it for the rest of the run.

My feet felt good until about mile 8 when the balls of my feet started to get sore. I experimented and adjusted my stride and was able to work around it. Really things felt the best when I just forgot about my feet and legs and focused on breathing and enjoying the idea that, "I'm running a 1/2 marathon!" I found that uphill was easier on the feet than down, fortunately none of the hills were real steep and my steady comfortable pace worked well and I was able to remain consistent. On the first few downhills I think I actually slowed down because that's where I really felt the impact on my feet.

Mile 11 was the start of the final downhill. You can really say "It's all downhill from here." Fortunately not too steep and I focused on trying to find the stride that was comfortable yet maintain speed and I think I was able to pick up my pace a little at this point.


Finally the last 3/4 mile I knew where the end was and I pushed to pick up the pace and was actually able to sprint for the last 1/2 through the finish. It felt good. I saw Wade, Tanja, Rog and KC waiting and cheering me on. That felt good too.

Well Kerrianne finished about 30 minutes before I did, and I finished more than 15 minutes earlier than I was hoping for. We both had a good day.


KC, Jen, Brenda, Me.

We all had a good run.

My time was: 2hr 13min 22sec. Which put me right in the middle of the men finishers which is pretty good.


Kerrianne finished in 1hr 44min 29sec which put her at 31st out of 1636 women and more than 8 minutes faster than last year. She's pretty amazing!