What’s next?

By Karen McNew
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: November 24, 2008

I have spent the last several weeks training for the Star City Half Marathon with my co-worker and friend Alison Matthiessen who is next to me in the photo for this entry.

The picture is just before the finish line so we had already covered about 13 miles here… it started out as an e-mail I sent to several friends asking if anyone wanted to do a “long run” on a Saturday (10 miles)  I didn’t really expect to have any takers but Alison responded with a yes and that is where our training began… for the next four weeks we were committed to an 8-10 mile run on the weekends… no matter the weather…

The first run was in the cold rain… the second and third just in the cold and the fourth was in the cold with wind (my least favorite by far) - This was Alison’s first half marathon and I had no doubt that she would do great… her enthusiasm helped to fuel my energy… I did the race last year and would probably have passed on it this year without a friend to run it with…

We had a solid pace the whole time… about 9:26 according to the Star City Strider results... the pure satisfaction of finishing with a decent time was all of the gratification we were looking for and that is what we got… our total time was 2 hours 3 minutes and some change… we talked the whole time and decided for next year we will have to recruit a third “team member” who is looking to conquer the race for the first time in order to be motivated to run it again..

Thanks to the folks at Fleet Feet who were handing out “goo-packets” (little tubes of a gel that contains caffeine and sugar) at mile 7… that was just the little bit of energy we needed to keep going.. also to the Star City Striders and all of the volunteers who cheer the runners on by name or number… at one point a sweet woman yelled - “good job 167… and 169…“  encouragement is key when you are on the home stretch… and Thanks to Alison for good conversation and a good run.. it was fun.

Now I am looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Festival 10 miler in April in Washington D.C.!