Let me tell the story of the race on Saturday.

I left home early in the afternoon; we had to juggle a little bit with our schedules with my wife, and at the end we asked a friend to watch the kids for a few hours while we were both gone, but it was OK.

The rain was pouring all the way to Laurens. It is about a 75-minute drive. It was raining so hard that I had to slow down on the interstate to about 60 mph. I was a bit worried that the race would be canceled, but the organizer said they would only cancel in case of thunderstorms.

I got to the park at 3:45. The start was supposed to be from that park at 5:00 pm. So I picked up my package (still raining hard), and I got back to my car to dress up for the race, to pin on my bib number and to attach the electronic timing strip to my shoe. Then I was just sitting there, listening to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos on the car stereo until 4:35. I ate my carb snack, drank some water, then I got out of the car. After going to the bathroom, I started to warm-up at 4:45, and I was at the start line at 4:55. It was still raining quite hard, so by this time, I was almost soaked.

The organizers had some technical issues with the timing equipment in the rain, so they had to delay the start. First they said they would start at 5:10. I tried to keep myself warmed-up, but it is sort of hard to do that without getting tired. I felt I was still ready at 5:10, but then it turned out that we wouldn't start until 5:20. I started to get upset, and I basically let myself cool down. So this part wasn't quite great.

They did start the race at 5:20. It started on an uphill, and many people just shot out from the start line. I took it somewhat easier, running more conservatively. After the top of the hill, I passed a few (obviously unexperienced) runners, and I arrived to the the first mile at 7:12. By this time it was hardly raining any more, but the pavement was full of puddles. I did the second mile at about the same pace, passing quite a few people. I felt good, and it wasn't raining any more. Still, I knew I had to be careful, so I tried not to push too hard.

The next mile was mostly uphill, and I got to the 3 mile point at 22:02. I didn't quite realized how much we had climbed, and I was disappointed with that time. I knew I needed about 7:15 min/mile to get my goal time. In fact, during the whole time, there was just one thing in my head: 36 minutes. So it looked like I had lost 17 seconds (and all of that in the 3rd mile), and that I had to get the last two miles is less than 7 min/mile pace. At that point, feeling a bit tired already, and knowing my current pace, it didn't seem feasible.

One positive sign was the slight downhill that started almost immediately at the 3rd mile marker. I also started to push, a bit carefully, but soon, I stopped doing my rhythmic 2-2 breathing pattern. (That means I breath in for two steps and breath out for two steps.) I needed more oxygen. At 3.5 mile, I started to push quite hard. I wanted to arrive to the finish line with zero energy left. I passed another few people. I got to mile 4 at 28:55 or so.

Soon after the mile marker I started to worry a bit. I felt like I started my final push ("the kick") to soon, and I was running out of energy. Especially, because another longish climb followed. I tried not to slow down, but when I got to the top, I was hurting at so many body parts, I couldn't even enumerate them. Hurting badly, I tuned to the finish straight. Just like in Folly Beach, the magical powers of the finish kicked in, and my pains disappeared, leaving just the pleasure of seeing the finish clock showing 35:30 or something like that. I crossed the line at 35:48.

The organizers cut my magnetic strip from the shoe. I wanted to tell them that I was so happy to beat my best expectation on a hilly course in rainy weather and delayed start, but only babble came out of my mouth, so I gave up. I grabbed a banana and a drink, and in 5 minutes I looked like a human once again.

I grabbed dry clothes from my car and changed into them. I walked back to the finish line. The end of the pack was still arriving. After 65 minutes race time they swept the course, closed the timing, and soon they printed out and hung out the results. I got 3rd in my age group! I got a nice pencil holder and a patch. Another pleasant surprise was that it turned out that the organizers actually measured out 5 miles instead of 8 kilometers. The difference is only 47 meters, but it means another 10 seconds or so.

My next step was not that clear after the race, but by now, I more or less decided what to do. I will probably run a charity 5K in a month, but I should train for longer distances. I must remember that the final goal is a marathon. So I'm going to follow a half marathon training for 12 weeks. There won't be any half-marathons in 12 weeks around here, so unless I win the lottery (without buying a lottery ticket), I won't actually run a half-marathon race, I will just run the distance myself in race pace to see where I'll have gotten.