A Rerun Of The Past: Cheryl Runs The Des Moines Half Marathon.

Today was the big day.   13.1 miles in Des Moines to symbolically "wrap up" the fall running season.  Cheryl has been looking forward and dreading this race for pretty much the entire year.  But in the end,  things worked out and she remained consistent after a missed pandemic year.   How consistent?   Would you believe she ran the entire race in THE EXACT  SAME TIME she did in 2019! To the second!  ( 1:39:05!) Back then, she managed to win second place in her age group.  This year,  she only won third... Because of the "Ringer":  A New Runner who ran it in an insane time of 1:28:34!  

But mostly Cheryl was happy.   (Was... because happiness is always fleeting.) Her happiness has mostly worn off by now, but for a moment,  she was satisfied with her performance.  At the very least she has not added any time to her running as she aged.   So now there are only the small "odd ball" runs to look forward to.  Turkey trot, trail runs, Santa shuffle, Perhaps even an Halloween run.  I don't know... I'm just the spectator.

But I had a heck of a time trying to navigate the city of Des Moines this morning.   After finding a questionable parking spot close to the race event,  I was flirting with the idea of driving to the Water Park to catch Cheryl at mile 7 and 9.  I risked losing my awesome, though questionable parking spot if I attempted it.  But Cheryl assured me it would be possible.   It... was not. 

I'll get to that part later.  In the mean time,  We linked up with Mike and Pam and talked about our strategies.  Pam was going to walk to Mile 3 and completely miss the start.  My plan was to catch everyone at the Start and them move on to the park.   Mike was going to run the Race in a faster time than the previous half-er he did.   Cheryl just wanted to finish.  

Oh!  Cheryl just informed me that that was NOT the case.   She wanted to get under 1 hour 40 minutes so she would not feel like a total sloth and loser.  Well.... Mission accomplished! 

Back to the Start!  I missed any intentional photos and just started snapping pictures of the crowd.  Mike was easy to pick out. But Cheryl... Short, tiny, invisible Cheryl... was a little more of a challenge.  Regardless. I managed to snag a pic of her as she snuck by. 

Now onto the Next Phase of the "Ethan's  Spectator Plan!" I raced to the Subie,  punch in the GPS and head out.  Only to be stopped by mile 2!   All of the cars park in the middle of the road and jump out to take pics of the runners that are passing by.   By this point, I had no idea where Cheryl was in the pack.  But I DID see Mike run by and figured Cheryl was close behind.   She was!  I got lucky and snapped a bunch of action shots as she ran by. 

After talking to the traffic police,  I was informed that any traffic to the water park was impossible at that moment.   The Police had the entire area buttoned up and no through traffic would be allowed until the event was over.   I headed back to finish line, but was forced to park farther from the finish that I had previously been.   Disappointing!

But, in the end, I managed to stake out my usual viewing area and capture both Mike and Cheryl as they ran by.  

 

And just like that... The race was over.   We linked back up with Mike and Pam and enjoyed some "Hard Seltzer" and pulled pork sandwiches.  Ok,  They enjoyed the Hard Seltzer and I ate the sandwiches. No one really wanted to eat any meat after running 13 miles.   How odd.

Back home now.   Cheryl set up her swag  complete with the challenge attachment.   She is eating Ice Cream and reading about the race as I type away at the blog.   Time to be a bum and enjoy the cats.. who are both sleeping on my keyboard as I type this.  ( Hiro and Rocket.. Leo has not yet showed up, but I'd bet he would want in on the "action."   

Talk about a busy weekend! And after yesterday's Post, I better keep this one slightly shorter.  And, upon discussion with the Zakoseks, I have decided to blow their cover and make their identities public.   Now they will be put on a mailing list for runners and have their Email's Spammed with offers.  Just kidding.  No one really reads this blog.   Except perhaps the Google Algorithm.  ( Which is probably worse!)   Thanks for stopping in and I hope everyone had as great a weekend as we did.