Postponed

I don’t normally write about political events or even about current events all that much. This blog was always intended to be only about the current events in our life. Sometimes the world or state or local current events intermingle with our own little world though, and then I’m forced to incorporate them into my writing. The government began a partial shut down on October 1^st. When it was looming and even when it happened, I had no thoughts of it impacting my life. Months ago, I had chosen my fall half marathon which was the Wilson Bridge Half Marathon to be held on October 6^th. What I didn’t realize about the government shutdown was that it would affect the race because much of it is run on National Park Service land, which technically closed with the shutdown. A day later, the decision was made to postpone the race to November 10^th. Two of my friends and I ran our own 13.1 that Saturday, dubbed the Government Shutdown Half, because the shut down couldn’t stop us from running. Truth be told, the weather was abnormally hot and humid for early October and it was probably for the best that the race had been postponed. Our 13.1 turned into a training run, and we took our time finishing in about 2 hours, 15 minutes…a far cry from my personal best, and from my goal of close to or under 2 hours. I could have run faster but I stuck with my friends and it was a nice run, aside from the heat and humidity. We even got a few thumbs up from fellow runners on our homemade shirts. 

The race being postponed has left me with a mix of emotions. Obviously, I felt well prepared and was mad that it didn’t go off as planned. I was so ready to be done with weekend long runs and training. On top of that, I was dealing with a sore hamstring on that last 13.1 mile training run. I tend to over-react so had I written this a week or 10 days ago, I would have been pretty down because of that hamstring. But in the last week or so, I’ve been able to run with less and less pain thanks to stretching, heat and incorporating weekly yoga into my workouts. I even got a 9.5 mile long run in on Sunday. I feel like I will be able to get one more long run in this weekend and then do another two week taper. The government is re-opened, so no worries about another postponement or (worse) cancellation. And with the date change, I will have more spectators in my cheering section at the finish line because the Weitz family will be here that same weekend :)