Guus Bosman

Early in the morning the weather forecast for 8.00 am in Raleigh still mentioned thunderstorm, but when I arrived the weather was quite acceptable; overcast but no storm. I was really happy that the race would start on time, my first half marathon ever.

It was great fun! I finished in about 2 hours and 20 minutes (the official time will be posted on their website in a while), about 10.7 minutes a mile. That's better than my long training runs and it's a good first result that I can improve on a next time.

It's strange that the race that I've been training for so long is now over. I'll have to find myself a new running goal; I hope to find another half marathon for in a few months. And I promised myself I can buy new shoes now; mine are about a year old and have seen many miles.

Downtown Raleigh is beautiful, and I liked the track. There's a long out-and-back in the second half, where it's 4 miles up and then 4 miles down Hillsborough Road. The first part was a bit depressing because you see all the runners who are so much faster, but the second part was nice because you see the runners that are slower. There were music bands every few miles, a nice touch. It's wonderful to be able to run in the middle of the road! The surface is nice and smooth, and in the middle the road is flat so you don't walk crooked like you do when on the side of the road.

Today was the first day of the Full Frame documentary festival in Durham and I saw my first movie in the late afternoon. I'll write about it in a separate article but it was a great start.

I've done something quite unusual: I took a day off. I had such a good time last year at the festival that I'll spend a good chunk of tomorrow watching documentaries. In the afternoon I have to go to Raleigh to pick up my packet for Saturday's. So far it looks like it going to rain on Saturday morning. Rain is fine, as long as the race doesn't get cancelled.

I must say that I'm disappointed with the selection for opening movie of Full Frame this year, and we decided not to go see it. The movie is called Trumbo; various people are reading from the correspondence of Mr. Trumbo, a writer who in the 1940's got blacklisted as a suspected Communist. I'm sure it is a good documentary but it seems overly self-focussed for a documentary festival to start with a movie about a screenwriter. I suppose I'm just disappointed that it's not as brilliant as a choice as Castells was last year