Southern Feast to Stormy Finish: An Area 13.1 Half Marathon Adventure

Randy Riley(HF16432, DA3218, MM14470) – Area 13.1 half marathon Roswell, GA. The day before the Mayberry Half Marathon Donna and I had dinner with Half Fanatic friends Anita Burns and Charlene Mercer Board. I told Donna that Charlene had posted pictures of her mom’s cooking that looked like an old fashioned southern feast. That led to us being invited to dinner so we flew to Atlanta for dinner and a race. On Friday we had the best food I can remember. Fried chicken, collard greens with neck bones, candied yams, pea salad and corn bread. Yes, I had seconds. It took less than a minute after meeting her family to feel like family! We talked for hours of fun times, struggles and God’s goodness to bring us through it all.
Saturday night Charlene, Anita and I did the Area 13.1 Half. We started at 7 PM in 90F with high humidity. Honestly at only 2 1/2 miles I thought I would not be able to hang in. At 5 miles a major storm pummeled us. Not exaggerating when I say it rained so hard we couldn’t see the course in front of us. It was dark by then and we were running with headlamps. Lightning and thunder were continuous and on top of us. The course looped back near the finish line at around 6 miles and I expected them to pull us off the course. Instead they told us the storm would stop in 20 minutes and we kept plowing ahead, often through water deeper than the top of my shoes and over fallen branches. Anita and Charlene kept me moving. After the race I discovered my IPhone had locked out. I drove back to the hotel without gps guessing at a couple of turns, dodging tree limbs on the road. It was totally dark as I got closer to the hotel because the power was out. No street lights, no traffic signals. Donna was sitting in our room in the dark.
LIFETIME HALF MARATHON #250. Age group award 2nd place.

Photo and Post Credit Randy Riley