Whee! I did it!

I am very chuffed (to my American friends: that means extremely pleased) with myself today because I finished my first half-marathon race yesterday in Brighton. As U2 sings in "Vertigo": YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!

My legs are slightly sore, but not nearly as bad as they were after I did the Nike 10K in November.

There were 2,499 other people regstered for the race, so the start was pretty crowded. Lucky for me, my friend Liz was also doing the race, so we could be nervous together. We didn't run together though, because she's much better than me, so she sped ahead after the start. She went on to get a personal best. Technically, since this was my first half-marathon, it was a personal best for me, too, but I was a little disappointed with my time, so I'm not going to share it.

It was a beautiful, though extremely cold, morning. The sun was bouncing off the English Channel, as we ran down the boardwalk and around into Hove. The first six miles were sunny and flat, so fairly enjoyable in a "This is a kind of torture" kind of way. The final seven miles, though, were horrible, as we had to climb fairly big hills to get up onto the Sussex cliffs. Then the winds came, cutting across the cliffs making me feel as though I wasn't moving at all. But I persevered and when I hit mile 12, I thought, "One mile! I can do that!"

My iPod ran out of juice after only three songs, which was a huge bummer, but what can you do. I've already appointed Tim as my "iPod maintenance guy" for Marathon Day.

All in all, I feel confident that I can finish the big marathon in April, which pleases me to no end.