The Longmont Half Marathon was signed up on a whim as we were on our way to visit my sister and I thought, “Why Not?!”  It was the smallest race I’ve attended but nicely put together.  Of course I hadn’t trained and we had been eating out for all our meals so I thought this ought to be fun.  Matt and I got up at 3:00am to drive up from Colorado Springs for packet pick up before the race and get situated.  Beautiful views and nice friendly people all around.  First portion was a loop and a half around the park and then head out onto the cement bike path.   Oh how I wished for at least asphalt and my legs both went numb.  Dang, I thought I had this issue resolved, but there I was, dead last after so many runners past me by because I could barely stand.  One leg came back, but the other was being stubborn and I called Matt to be on standby if I need to return.  He was about to go out on a 16 mile bike ride.  Feeling pissed off about my possibility of actually DNFing a race and wasting my time, I see one more runner come by.  She stopped to check on me and encouraged me to continue a little further.  About another half mile, I finally feel my leg tingle and come back to life.  Called Matt so he could go on his ride and I continued on with no more issues.  I chose to stay with my encourager and was in awe of her perseverance.  It was her 49th half marathon and she has cerebral palsy.  No way was I leaving her now.  We did 2:1 intervals (two minutes of running and one minute of walking).  It was one of the most amazing races I did to get her to the finish line as she was nearly unable to continue at the last few miles, but we ran it in, together, hand in hand.  She’s my new hero! 3:21 on July 4th, 2018. State 3/50.