Today I finished the Tyler Rose Half Marathon in less than two hours. Today's event is the first of my Four Seaons Half Marathon Challenge. The course is a tough one: there are a lot of hills or up and down along the way, and the surface for most part of the course is not so runner friendly. I finished in less than two hours anyway. My primary target was to break my 1:50 PR (personal record, December 2010), and if not, the backup target was 2 hours. I followed the 1:50 pace leader for first half of the course. Pace leaders are veteran runners who run at a certain pace so that they finish the full course in a certain time. They hold a sign indicating their pace during the race and pople who want to run at a certain pace can just follow the sign. At about the ninth mile, I started to walk a little bit. For some reason, my shoulder joint started to hurt, and I could barely move my arms. Maybe it was due to the fact that I only stretched my legs but not my arms and shoulder before the race or maybe I was being cursed by someone at that moment. However, I was ahead of the 2 hour pace leader all the way and sprinted for the last 0.1 miles.

Everyone who finished today's running course (13.1 miles) received a medal like the one shown below.






Looking back, I would do have done better if I had more training, espcially hill training. I had a coule months of running break this summer and decided to participate in the event late last month. I would have not signed up for this event if four of my colleagues had not signed up for the event. I am sure I will do better for the rest of the challenge events. Please stay tuned. :-)