Okey, first things first. Running the half marathon was awesome, but the feeling after completing it and realizing that all the work that I put in the past two months paid off was just something beyond awesome! I set the goal of running the 21,1k in two hours and my time ended up being 2:06. I was more than happy with the time!

 On the race morning, while my coaching/cheerleader team (daughter and fiancé) were still sleeping, I got up at 5:30 so I had good 3,5 hrs to eat breakfast, wake up the others, get ready for the race and hit to Nafplio. I'm the only one in the family who likes early mornings, so the car was pretty quiet. We made it to Nafplio an hour before the start because I wanted to make sure that I don't need to rush to the starting line plus the possibility that I will forget anything is smaller. Oh well, as soons as I got behind the line waiting for the start I realize that I forgot my headphones.. While thinking what stories I'm going tell to myself when I'm going to crawl the kilometers, I pumped into a couple of my friends who I had met in a tennis tournament last November. Perfect!

The first hour went fast, and I mean F A S T. My friend had an application where a voice always informed the time and kilometers. We were chatting, laughing and cheering the whole first 60 minutes. It was +22C, blue sky, a tourquoise ocean shining next to us and the Palemidi Castle rising ahead. We completed the first half in less than an hour. 

After 12k we started to separate and I could feel my pace getting slower. The road took far away from the city and all of the sudden we were somewhere in the middle of orange tree fields. The sun was burning and there was no breeze. My Scandinavian skin was screaming for sun screen, didn't have that though. Some people started to walk, and I could hear someone breathing heavily behind me. A guy right ahead of me was bleeding from his leg. I was thinking what the he** I've done, why I'm here. Luckily there was a water stop coming up, so I could grab a bottle of water, pour it on my face and pick up my pace. Otherwise I would've probably joined the walking group.

At one point I remember seeing the sign "20km". I was thinking "What? That must to be for the full marathon runners!" but no, it was a sign telling that only 1,1k was left. Even though the orange field felt like ever lasting desert run with bare feet, the marathon would now be ending. With mixed feelings I sprinted the last hundreds of meter and then, I had done it. I HAD COMPLETED MY FIRST HALF MARATHON! 

Now, if you have even little thoughts about signing up for a race, I engourage you just to do it! I will guarantee that the training isn't easy, nor the race itself, but hey, nothing worth having comes easy. So grab your sneakers and do it!