Soaring Wings Half Marathon

My second half marathon is in the books!

Soaring Wings HM benefits the Soaring Wings Ranch, a Christian youth home.  They are totally privately funded by donations and events like the half marathon.  A good cause.  =) 

We (my sister and I) had signed up as runners, but walked the entire race.  Runners can walk, but walkers can't run.  Not that we ran any, but we could have.


For a few minutes, the white haired lady to the right was the only other walker in the corral with us.  The results showed 85 people registered as walkers, though.

This was a completely different experience than the Little Rock Half.  Much smaller, for one.  1749 people total.

I had someone to walk with, which was different.  I really enjoyed having my sister with me and she pushed me.  I probably would have been much, much slower without her.

The course was TOUGH.  The Little Rock half was fairly flat.  This felt like we were going uphill the whole time, which of course is impossible, but that's how it felt.  And we were on the side of the roads, which wasn't always level.  I stopped to stretch at the first water station after the halfway mark, and a lady asked if I was OK.  I told her I was fine and she said "Oh, you're just preparing for Bay Hill?"  I thought, "Sweet baby Jesus, a hill with a name?  I'm going to die."  It wasn't THAT bad, but all the hills were very tiresome.  And the downhill near the end was killer....  you wouldn't think going downhill would ever be hard.  Try walking 12 miles and then take a steep decline.  It's harder than you think.

Another different experience... blisters.  I didn't get them until I got my new shoes, and let me tell you... I had a blister on top of a blister on top of a blister on my left foot when I got home.  It was about the size of a half dollar.  That made the downhill at the end so bad.  I'm surprised they didn't pop.  I did eventually pop them myself at home.  I never do that, but it had to be done.  I need to figure out why I keep getting them with my new shoes, because it sucks.

And, lastly... I didn't train as well for this one.  I think the past two weeks, the only walking I did was my long distance walks.  I really could have been better prepared, but I don't feel any worse than I did for the last one, other than the blisters.

Our official time was 3:45:00.  10 minutes longer than my time for my first half, but I'm not complaining.  Like I said, if I had been alone, I probably would have been pushing 4 hours.  We were 1715 and 1716.  Only 1735 finished... 1 didn't make it to the halfway mark and 13 quit after the halfway mark.  I feel bad for them.  =(



The medals are nice and heavy!  My second medal, my sister's first!  I'm so proud of her.  She had been talking about doing the Little Rock Marathon 10K next year, but now she wants to do the half with me.  =)  It's so addicting.  My next half marathon is December 14.  Not very far away.  I am going to work on training to run part of it.  =)