The road to 13.1: Halfway home

When you’re on a journey, sometimes it’s the little milestones along the way that make the trip seem like it’s moving along nicely.  I enjoyed one of those today on my road to the Borgess Run for the Health of It.

Run #13:  7.00 miles, 1:17:13, 11:01.9/mile

Today’s run was more than half of a half marathon.  The feeling of crossing the halfway point is just awesome!  Granted, it’s the easier half that I’ve conquered so far, but … wow … I hadn’t run that far since 15 October 2008, four days before that unfortunate flag football incident.  Even better, though, is the fact that I covered the distance faster than I had ever covered it before.  I’m very excited about that.  It’s a good indicator that I’ve recovered what I lost due to the injury.  Furthermore, all my previous runs of that distance were in Schoolcraft, which is rather flat, while today’s course was far from flat.  As an added bonus, my last mile was my fastest, and I could have kept running for at least a little while.

After my run, I stopped at Biggby for coffee.  I don’t think there’s a better reward for running than a tall Mocha Caramel with skim milk, sugar-free chocolate, and no whipped cream.  At just 240 calories (not even counting the sugar-free chocolate), it was fewer than 25% of the calories that I burned during my run.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to have two after the half marathon.