Today I am in Santa Barbara. I ran the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon earlier today and finished in 2:14:01!!! That's over EIGHT MINUTES better than my previous PR. I'm still in a state of disbelief that I finished so far ahead of my time in Cabo. Was it the fact I ran Valpo 3 weeks ago? The mostly downhill 2nd half of the course? The result of a good night's sleep? I really can't explain why or how I improved so much from Valpo (10 minutes improvement....) but I do recall being at the halfway point and knowing I was going to PR. There is a stunning contrast between feeling like crap almost from the start of Valpo, and this race where I felt great the whole way. And...about halfway through the course today I ran BY FAR the biggest hill of my life (a BFH, as we say in the biz).
The course was really beautiful - I would definitely do this race again. It wasn't well-organized (we waited in Solvang for about 45 minutes for the buses to pick us up so I didn't even cross the start line until more than 20 minutes after the official start) and there weren't any mile markers, but that wound up being a good thing because it was nice not to know how far I had to go (especially when I heard someone at the final water stop say were we at Mile 11 but it was really much closer to Mile 12.
Wow - what a day - I can't even express how proud I am. I really surprised myself today. Another great day to be alive, to be a runner, to mark yet another milestone in this amazing journey I've had in becoming an athlete. I am so thankful for this day to discover another dimension of my strength, my determination, my ability to achieve what I set out to do. I am over the moon!
Tomorrow it's off to Santa Ynez wine country, the home of Sideways!
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