Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Soo I did a great job of keeping up with this blog...
My bad.

Anyway lets move past that and start where I left off, Lisbon and the half marathon :)

Lisbon is a b-e-a-utiful city with its hilly streets, new buildings, and old railcars. Oooo those railcars- soo cute! They remind me of San Francisco even though I have never been. Also, great news, our hostel was very clean, had a great breakfast, and awesome rooms. They even let us come back after we checked out and shower after the half marathon :) It was a very welcome and pleasant surprise from my last hostel experience. We toured Lisbon using the #28 railcar which takes you up to a spot with a great view as well as the castle in Lisbon. We had to check in for the marathon the day before the race, which was in another side of Lisbon and also very beautiful with great museums, towers, and churches.

I was worried about running 13.1 miles in the first place so I was really hoping everything would go ok that morning (like I would feel good and my calves/knees wouldn't hurt because they had been) but of course nothing goes as planned. My knees and calves were fine but Copeland and I planned to meet up with Cameron and some of our other friends who weren't running so they could hold onto our stuff. We were at two different hostels so we decided to meet at the metro station in the morning and head to the half marathon together. Well. turns out we met at the same station but two different entrances so we didn't find each other and headed to the marathon separately. This wouldn't have been a problem had I not taken a drawstring backpack with my (very large) DSL camera, a long sleeve T-shirt (it was chilly), and some fruit and cliff bars. The camera weighs a ton and I had to wear it on my back- perfect. So we are running across the bridge, which is the start of the marathon. Actually we were hardly running because there were so many people that you couldn't really run. Anyway I'm running with this awesome backpack on and the drawstring breaks (due to the fact that it was given to us by the sponsors of the marathon and therefore cheap). So I had to retie the string and continue running. Not so much fun running with a giant camera on your back and I was feeling pretty down until I saw some of our friends (Rachel, Katie, Katlyn, Brad) standing along the race route! I was SO excited to see them and I ran over and threw the the bag without an explanation and continued running. I felt SO much better without weight on my back and the rest of the marathon was great :) I finished without stopping and even got another glorious backpack at the finish line filled with a european-brand Special K bar, a metal, a water bottle, and (get this) MILK. Ew. I skipped the milk carton and settled on an ice cream bar they were handing out instead haha. I was very proud of myself for finishing and also really excited that I felt so great doing it. Let me tell you the best part about participating in a half marathon- you get to the stations where they are handing out bottles of water and a Gatorade-type drink and you get to take a sip or two and THROW the bottle on the side of the course like you are a real professional- it makes you feel SO COOL! Sadly, I am not kidding about this being my favorite part.

After finishing we got a good meal and even better ice cream before touring a little more of Lisbon and heading on the bus home.

Summary of the story: yes, I have finished the world's biggest half marathon :) Also, someone broke the record for the fastest half marathon that day. A man from Africa with the name Zersenay Tadese and a time of 58.23. I finished RIGHT behind him.