1/2 Marathon

This morning I ran the half marathon here in Iraq. It coincided with the Air Force marathon that was being ran all over the world on this day. By the time I was able to register for the run, they did not have anymore bib numbers, so I did not receive a medal for completing the run. I ran it in 2 hours 2 minutes, but it was longer than 13.1 miles.The route began off at the airfield at 5 a.m. and we started to run around the little part of the base that we could. The base only being 2 miles, means that you can only run so far until you have to double back on itself and with 500 runners, the roads aren't wide enough to accommodate two lanes of runners. By mile two, we began to run outside of the base. We had a scenic view (and smell) of the incinerators (where they burn feces), the burn pit (where they burn trash) and the dump (where they dump things like soiled mattresses, old cars, metal junk and other things) and yes the incinerators and burn pit were running. Why they couldn't have shut them off for a couple of hours to let us run by, was a mystery to all us runners. We were seriously 15 feet away from them running on the road in smoke and flies. There is nothing like breathing in burning trash for a couple of miles. The rest of the run went by pretty uneventful as I was listening to my Harry Potter book on tape in my iPod.
The ending however was ridiculous. Since we ran out and around the whole base, the run didn't stop at exactly 13.1 miles. There was a mile marker every mile and I was looking forward to hitting the finish line at the 13 mile marker, but I became a little confused that there was no people at the 13 mile marker. The race finished at the same place it started, but that was 14.2 miles from the start point. As you hit the 13 mile marker there was a sign that said, "just .1 to go" and a big sign that said 13.1 miles, congratulations! However, there was still another mile to go until you reached the finish line where they were reading times and giving medals.
So yes 2:02 minutes wasn't that great for 13.1 miles, but for 14.2 it wasn't as bad. The time was just under 9 minute miles. I wasn't winded or hurting too bad. I had to walk another mile and half to my room after the run, take a shower and then walk 2 miles back in to work. I figured that since I burned off enough calories I could eat whatever I wanted for Breakfast. I was going to eat, two sausage patties, two hash brown patties, French toast sticks and a cheese omelet. However I ate about half and got sick from all the grease.
Last year I ran the half marathon in 1:47, so I need to run a little faster in the next 1/2 marathon on October 4th. Maybe the race coordinators can get the incinerators and burn pit to shut down for a couple hours. This next time I will be sure to register early enough to get a medal.