13.1 Mile Photo-Shoot

Yesterday I talked about the Eugene Half-Marathon, but you still might have no idea what I looked like while I was running it. Today I got an e-mail notifying me that the pictures taken of me from the race are finally available online, so I can finally remedy yesterday’s lack of photos with illegally copied race pictures. Because I still can’t bring myself to pay $12.00 for one 5×7 print, but I know you need to see them.

First here’s a picture of me running after I glued my legs together:

Here’s a picture of me looking sad that that guy in front of me is about to beat me. I tried to sneak up on him at the end but he caught me doing it and sped up.

Here’s a picture of me doing the same thing from a different angle:

And finally here’s one more of me doing the same thing still but with my eyes shut. I was happy to at least beat the other guy in this picture. During the last two miles he probably passed me five times, only to have me pass him again a minute later while he was walking. He was probably injured, and it would have been embarrassing to lose to someone with an injury, so I made myself pass him at the very end. Then after we crossed the finish line he patted my back and said good job. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to say the same to him (since I beat him).

I used to think that there were only two kinds of race photos: incredibly awesome ones and incredibly ugly ones. Now I know different – big races like the Eugene Marathon hire photographers with extra fancy cameras that take one million pictures a minute, and then they show all of them to you online a few days after the race, giving me dozens of extremely mediocre photos. The one where I look sad is probably the best one they got. I left out all the terrible ones, which was most of them, but feel free to look them up yourself if you feel so inclined. Lauren had a way better finishing line picture than me, so I’ll share that one with you instead of my own:

I didn’t ask permission from Lauren to put this picture up, but I also didn’t buy the picture like I was supposed to. But it’s a cool picture so I feel like it’s okay to break the rules on both accounts.

These photos also document the last running steps I took before the start of a two week break from running. I’ve resolved to finally give myself the appropriate rest time to fully recover from my injuries. Not wanting to get out of shape, I’ll be attempting to keep myself fit with other forms of activities, that don’t use the achilles tendon. Today I went to a “Pilates Flow” class with about ten 70 year old women, where we spent an hour almost exercising. I truly regret that I don’t have as many pictures from the pilates class to share with you as I do from the race.