inaPROVOpriate: THE BUBONIC PLAGUE RIDES AGAIN

Alright little troopers, this last Saturday Indiana Jones and I ran our very first ever Half Marathon. It was a killer, particularly since I was super not in shape at all. I'll let this gif some up my feelings after I ran across the finish line

But let's start at the very beginning. I had to get up BEFORE the butt crack of dawn to get to Indy's house. That's right, I had to get up at 5:20 that morning. It was so early that not even my mom could get up to see me off. This was the view from Indy's house when we left

Anyway, we head on down and get our lives together and make our way to the starting line JUST IN TIME!!!! (but the race started like five minutes late so really we would have been fine) this is us

so young, so innocent.

clearly I just told a SUPER AMAZING JOKE

important warm up stretches.

In case anyone was wondering about the title, Indy and my team name for all running events is The Bubonic Plague (our informal team for snowboarding is the Ski Urchins [our band is called Twisted Limb]). We made shirts for it when we ran a half marathon relay last year. I obviously washed mine way more than Indy's, so hers looks way better.

please don't mind my super ugly leading of "THE BUBONIC PLAGUE" on Indy's shirt.

also that my dad always thinks it says "The bubonic Ragu" I didn't know letterspacing was a thing when we made these ok!!!!

Alright well enough of those shenanigans. The race started and things went pretty well!! Sadly there are no pictures to document this glorious event, so I will attempt to PAINT WITH WORDS. oh but first here's a handy dandy map of the course

Click through for SUPER SIZE

The first 5k or so just took us around on various roads until we approached the construction site. I guess the idea was that our moneys we paid to run this race are going toward building... I want to say it was a children's hospital and they wanted to show us it in progress!! instead I saw a whole lot of tiny rocks I didn't want to get lodged between my toe shoes.

Highly susceptible to small rocks (hairy legs optional)

After that was the tulip garden!! this was my favourite part, minus the one spot where somebody left the sprinklers on and it turned into mini dirty dash. Otherwise it was cool and there was some nice scenery.

AFTER THAT PART WAS GOLF COURSE FROM HELL. This was the majority of the race and I almost died all the time. Golf courses are cool if you're a rich old white dude, but running on the golf cart road was pretty much the worst. I think I murdered my knees. The hills weren't that much different elevation-wise, but they were all so steep that it didn't really matter (going downhill especially murdered me). The only thing that made the golf course ok was the lemonade/lemon powerade they had at one of the aid stations. THAT STUFF WAS GOOD.

Anyway, after that was THE HOME STRETCH. The mantra for this portion of the race was "It's only a 5k left, you can run a 5k, YOU EAT FIVE KAYS FOR BREAKFAST" It was pretty intense. I know Indy had a blister that started at Mile 6 and it was super killin by then I can't even imagine. I did stop and walk for a bit at this point and discovered I'd been running slower than I can walk.

THE FINAL STRETCH WAS COOL BECAUSE I SPRINTED IT AND EVERYONE THOUGHT I WAS A HERO FOR SURE AND THEN THEY GAVE ME A MEDAL.