Last Sunday Bill and I ran the Boulder Half Marathon together. I spent the last 6 weeks training for it, with recovery runs on Tuesdays and Fridays, speed work on Thursdays, and long runs on Sundays. We finished with a time of 2:11, which was a 13 minute improvement from my time last year, on a tougher course (very few spectators, up hill or rolling hills the entire way), at 5500 ft. Bill helped me to keep pace and filled up my water bottles along the way. I am so happy that he decided to run with me instead of at his own pace, I really could not have accomplished this without him.

It was a tough course for me but I was well below 10 minute pace (about 9:47) until the last quarter mile when I just about lost it going up the last hill. I barely made it to the finish line and wound up on the ground in the medical tent afterwards with an iv of fluids. When I wasn’t doing much better after 15 minutes or so I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance (first and hopefully last ambulance trip) for two more iv’s and felt almost 100% better by the time we arrived. Long story short, I was incredibly dehydrated, even after drinking 9 bottles of water/Skratch mix and having several Gu’s. Thankfully it didn’t hit me until the very end of the race and I was able to finish. Let’s just say a Camelback hydration backpack is on my x-mas wish list!

Thanks to Courtney for babysitting and Nana for relieving her since we were at the hospital!

For the complete set of photos, click here.