2014 Thunder Road Half-Marathon

November 15, 2014 7:45 AM
Charlotte, North Carolina

	Time	Pace	Division	Division Place	Gender Place	Overall Place	Bib #
Michael	1:38:26	7:31	M1-24	24/90	131/1,154	156/2,741	4097

Written by Michael:

I started training 12 weeks before the race. It was the first time in a long time that I was training for something so I was looking forward to that. The weekend of the race my Uncle Zach, my Aunt Lu, and my cousins Nathan and Lucas, all came to watch me run.

My grandpa and grandma also cheered me on along the course, along with the rest of my family and my "second mom" Ms. Lynne. When we are walking to the starting line it's REALLY cold. Luckily I came prepared with gloves, a blanket, a beanie, etc.

So I line up and as soon as they start I make a big mistake. I immediately throw away all my throw away clothes. So I'm running and a few minutes after I start I make a turn and I see a huge cheering squad waiting for me and I hear, "GO MICHAEL! GO MICHAEL!" It was probably the best one yet.  

So I'm running pretty fast for about 6 miles and I realize I can't do this forever. My goal at the time was to beat 1:30. I followed that pace for about 7 miles and I slowly slowed down. The 1:30 pace group passed me at about 9-10 mile marker. I knew that that was out of the question because my knees and my ankle were killing me. I was hurting pretty bad until I turned a corner and my cheering squad was waiting for me. My cousins and siblings had gathered leaves and used them as confetti and it was awesome! It was a great inspiration to keep going. I pushed through the pain and finished the race in 1:38:26. Everyone was waiting for me at the finish line and it felt so good to finish the race.

This part written by Owen:

In between when we saw Michael at mile 1, and again when we saw him at mile 10, we met Zach, Lu, Nathan and Lucas for breakfast.

After breakfast we knew we only had 15 minutes or so until we saw Michael at mile 10, so we paid our bill and left.  Malissa and I were ready before Zach and his family so we waited outside for a minute.  When we went outside we saw Pluto (their dog) chained to a street sign.  It surprised me that he brought him, I though he'd leave him at our house so he could play with Graycie.  So I went over there and started petting him and rolling around on the grass with him.  Then Zach came out of the restaurant and said "You know that's not Pluto, right?"  I thought he was joking, but he was serious, it wasn't Pluto!  Inside the real owners thought I was just a serious dog lover (which I am).  It was a pretty funny/embarrassing moment. 

For comparison, here is Pluto: