Half marathon success!

Two weeks ago Ryan and I ran our first overseas half marathon (and Ryan's first half marathon ever)!  It was in the canton of Fribourg in what was essentially the middle of no-where, Swiss, cow country.  Although the route itself was pretty boring and the strong smell of cow manure at points was certainly not a welcome addition to add to the already challenging running experience, it was a flat course which was a blessing in disguise.  In general, the race experience was overall essentially the same as the half marathons I ran in the US; but, I do have to say that it was neat to watch the kilometer markers go by instead of mile markers --the race seemed to go by faster since it was in 21 km increments instead of 13.1 mile increments.  

We ran together the entire time and finished in 2 hours and 5 minutes, which was also a personal record for me! The strange thing is that we were barely sore in the days following the race, which perplexes me because I was practically bed ridden after the last 2 races that I did... perhaps it had something to do with the altitude? Any runners out there have any theories?

Training for the race together was motivating and fun and we decided that while we are living over here, we are going to start picking half marathons in snazzy destinations to keep fit while doing some traveling.

Post race with our medals on 

I couldn't resist sneaking a picture of these totally strange and kind of scary school band uniforms, whoever thought these uniforms were a good idea?! I just don't understand...

One of the other amusing US vs. Swiss race differences is that after the race, they had a "Rosti" and sausage party for all the runners.  Rosti is sort of like the Swiss version of hash potatoes, with a lot more butter and fat. We allowed ourselves to deviate from OBB (Operation Beach Body) and indulge.

Another amusing find - they provided carrots post race to nibble on... I've seen oranges and apples, but carrots was a new one to me! Of course Ryan had to turn it into a silly photo opp..