The Jungle Run

These are my friends/neighbors Lisa and Jodi, with whom I ran the Jungle Half Marathon yesterday.

Yes, they are younger. Yes, they are more beautiful. And yes, they sweat less than I do. I figure if I’m going to embarrass myself trying to run 13 miles, I might as well run next to them and look really old and sweaty in the process.

Our other neighbor, the famous Mike Willie, author of the Dona Tomas cookbook also ran. Here is the humiliating part. He ran this course, which is part off-road, with a few little hills scattered about, in 1 hour 41 minutes.

Now some of you are thinking that’s not great time—I know lots of runners who can do better than that—and the truth is Mike himself could have done much better than that if he wasn’t pushing his two children in a double-baby-stroller the entire way.

As it was, Mike came in almost a whole hour ahead of us.

Mike’s wife was out of town, so super dad that he is he decided to pack his two boys up, get them dressed and fed, bring snacks and juice and all that kid stuff. He hauled himself and his kids down to the start line around 6:30 in the morning and ran 13 miles, yawn, oh just another lazy day for Mike.

His kids fell asleep and stayed that way for almost the entire race. My kids would have bailed out somewhere around mile .07 looking for some electronic device to keep them pacified.

At the start of the race Lisa, Jodi and I had big plans. We were going to run a marathon, marathon in Italy. Yah, that’s it, we were going to fly somewhere exotic every year and run a marathon there.

At the end of the race, as we passed mile 12 and headed for the finish, I turned to Jodi and Lisa and said, “Just think, if we were running a marathon now we’d almost be half way.”

Our marathon plans have been put on hold.

We are still thinking about going to someplace exotic to run a race—but right now it ain’t going to be a marathon.

Comments

[Kalyn]

Way to go! I seriously doubt if I could run 5 miles.

[farmingfriends]

Congratulations - what an achievement. Well done to you all.
Sara from farmingfriends

[chigiy]

Kalyn,
You could if it was your thing. I've been running for fifteen years. You just have other interests that's all. Your are an awesome cook and blogger extraordinaire.

Sara,
Thank you.
BTW, I love your blog.

[Moe]

Until you mentioned, I assumed all the people in the picture were the same age, etc.

Congrats on the run, too!

[chigiy]

Dear Moe,
I love you:)

[kate]

I second Moe's comment! That is incredible ... and a half marathon is great. Good for you...