Practice Makes Perfect?

Well, I ran a half-marathon (13.1 miles) this morning. It was just a practice race for the full marathon in January- sort of a check-up to make sure that I'm not a total dud this far along into "training". Well, I didn't bomb out, but I didn't exactly tear it up either. I ran the race in 2:15:49, a pace of 10:28/mi, nearly the same time that I ran the Houston half-marathon 2 years ago. So, no improvement, but I guess if I were going to be "positive" I could say that I burned 1,218 kcal (according to the calorie counter on my watch), I didn't regress and there's always room for improvement. But, who wants to be positive, anyway? I noticed on the posted results that Miss Walmart finished one place ahead of me in our class (25-29 female). She probably pushed someone down to get ahead.

While I was running, I saw all kinds of sappy, supposed motivational, Ralph Waldo Emerson-esque quotes on people's team shirts: "What lies behind you and what lies ahead of you are small matters compared to what lies within you" I nearly lost the yogurt I had eaten 2 hours earlier. The 50 year old woman at mile 6, clad in a bikini and ringing a cow bell was certainly amusing. Around mile 9 I saw "Team Molasses" and thought that was clever and that I would be a perfect candidate for their team. Or maybe start my own- "Team Christmas"? Get it, dad?!