The alarm didn’t even need to go off; I was already awake. I was awake most of the wee hours of the morning thanks to Tom’s tossing and turning in bed. You’d think that he was racing. Oh well, at least there was no chance of me missing the bus ride to the race.
I was a little worried about my history of motion sickness. I skipped my coffee, which made being awake all the more challenging but allowed me to get a nice seat at the front, which was a great thing. I didn’t even need to take my dramamine.
The bus dropped us off near the start in plenty of time to hit the port-o-potties and squeeze into the crowd. There sure were a lot of people out for the Kaiser Permanete Half Marathon. It took a minute or so to hit the start and then we were off and weaving through the crowd.
Basically the first mile was a bit of a blur. I was running with Cindy and aware that I was running faster than Coach had wanted me to go. I kept bidding Cindy to go on, but separation was easier said than done. Finally, I watched her move ahead of me, when a few runners got in between us. I could see her looking around for me, but I needed to let her go.
Through the early miles, I was feeling good. I tried to keep it slow, but couldn’t manage to slow down enough. I was taking it easy though, and my foot was doing fine with my trail shoes and the orthotic/metatarsal arch cushion set-up.