This was my recovery run the day after my first ultra so the plan was to just take things easy and run with Haley and Welshy. I skipped the chaos of the first aid station in favor of walking ahead and giving my knees a break. They were already sore so it wasn't going to get any easier from here. My eventual technique for the day was to run through each aid station to practice drinking from a cup at full speed and then walk backwards until Welshy caught up with me. It gave my knees a break and worked a different set of muscles for a bit. About 2 miles in Haley started to complain about her knee and by the time mile 3 rolled around she knew that she wasn't going to be able to finish. The next aid station was mile 3.5 and that's where she dropped. And then there were two.

Welshy had started to get sick the night before, not really full blown sick but just really congested. Every few minutes I would hear him breathing really heavily and I'd look over just to make sure he was okay. He was fine every time but the sound kept throwing me off. On top of that he was blowing snot rockets non-stop. I've never seen so much snot come out of a person's head! The joys of running.

Around mile 6 I ran into Carlos Coffman from IRope.com. He blew out his knee years ago and can no longer run. So instead he has to skip to finish a marathon. So if you have to skip, why not jump rope for a marathon? He's done 65 marathons, all while jumping rope. He was also in the January issue of Runner's World. Very cool to meet someone known all over the country for his race gimmick.

Other than the above this was a fairly low key run. Just plodded along and enjoyed the view. We ran into David(dgillen) around mile 10. He ran as a relay, finished his leg of the race and ran with us for a short bit. This was right about the same time that the marathon leaders started to pass us. This year they had a battle of the sexes where the elite women got a 19 minute head start over the elite men. Two or three women passed us with just a few miles to go before we saw the male leader. About the time that the 5th or 6th place woman reached us Welshy had to blow another snot rocket. He had no idea she was about to pass him as he turned to the side and a few seconds later there was a pro speedy passed us with Welshy's snot all over her leg. Took me damn near a mile to stop laughing!

We headed back through downtown and approached the AAC again. Once we made the final turn and could see the finish I left Welshy behind and sprinted in the rest of the way. I'm pretty pround of a 2 1/2 hour half mararathon the day after my first ultra.

This was a recovery run and it went exactly how a recovery run should go.

We got our medals, photos, etc. and then went to find Haley. Then the #1 priority became the free beer. We stood around drinking and talking for a while and Emily(emilyindallas) came up and found us. While we were all talking there was a sudden silence. None of us realized at that second but we all stopped talking as a guy with a uber-nice USPS edition Trek road bike w/ aerobars went by. Total tri-dork moment. We headed inside to get to the food and met Bill(rollinsw) along the way. I hadn't eaten breakfast that day (I only had 1 hour of sleep the night before so that was my priority) so I really loaded up and got my money's worth. Haley and Welshy had to go pretty quick in order to check out of their hotel so I stayed and ate and talked with the other triathletes at the table. What a great day.


Didn't want to go fast.


White Rock is my favorite local half-marathon so I'll be back.