October 19 I ran the Des Moines half-marathon with Mike Luepke, former Covenant missionary to Zaire and Cameroon. Mike and his wife Gwen live in Des Moines where Mike is a doctor. Race day was great weather, about 50 or so. Mike and I started farther back in the pack of ~6,500 than we would have liked so had to work our way around a lot of people to settle into the pace we wanted. We hit a good pace and kept moving forward and even catching up with some of the pace setters. Cindy and Gwen moved around the course andn cheered us on 3 times. What fun!! Coming to the end I was feeling great and told Mike I was going to start kicking. I did the last mile in under 8 minutes. Final time: 1hr, 53 min for 8 min 37 sec/mile average.
Here are some photos: half-marathon photos
