half-marathon

We did it! The half-marathon went exceptionally well and it was a golden moment crossing the finish line with Luke, holding hands and embracing on the other side! We ran smart, we ran hard, we ran well. Our strategy was to run long and hard at the start and shift to 10 minute runs and 1 minute walks near the end. We also took two water bottles at every chance, drinking one and dumping the other on our heads. Patrick, if you’re reading this the “power-ups” where a big help! There was nothing available for nourishment on the run other than water. We were really glad for those jell packs! The time is not record setting, but we’re actually not sure what it is. My watch tells me 2:32 but Jeremy Piercy (from Shared Earth, London) who started with us but dropped back and is quite sure he never passed us, says his time was 2:15. I think we’ll just go with that! It certainly felt like a strong run, my knees didn’t hurt, Luke’s throat didn’t hurt (although it started to again right after the race – a minor miracle for him) and even my heart rate was an incredibly low. The only negative was after the run, we had to stand in a 2 ½ hour line up to return our running chips. I was sorely (literally) tempted to give up the $30 and keep the chip. Totally ridiculous to have marathoner’s standing around in the sun right after a run. I was amazed that I never saw anyone collapse. The upside was having a nice chat with a Mumbai resident standing in line next to me.
Anyways, this wasn’t about our performance. It was a great event. We missed nearly all of the festivities waiting in line, but there was around 30,000 runners and the streets were lined with people cheering us on the whole time. There were massive conga lines weaving all over the streets in the Dream Run with thousands of people carrying banners and dressed in costumes, it was great! A television reporter asked me several questions at the end of the race, so, who knows – maybe we’ll be on Indian TV! If we are I hope they don’t cut the comment about Asha Handicrafts, I know they’d be pleased with the coverage. I'm not sure how we've done on the overall goal of $32,000 CDN in fundraising. I think we made it though. The UK group raised about $9,000 Pounds and I think we've raised around $10,000 CDN so we should be really close.
Unfortunately there will be no pictures of us running. We couldn’t carry a camera and the rest of the group was in the Dream Run and, again, because of waiting in line after we missed connecting with them totally. We just got back to the hotel and Luke is asleep already. I’m so proud of him, he gave it everything to do this with me. I’m such a blessed Dad. And now, I’m going to follow Luke’s lead and hit the sack (our relentless schedule has us up and off to the airport at 4:00 am to fly to Jaipur). It’s such a good hurt.