It was time for my annual participation for the half marathon. As always, I can’t run without taking photos. I could have played Pokemon Go and capture Pokemon creatures too, but I settled in just capturing pictures.

It was a foggy and an overcast morning. Though for runners, there’s no “bad” day to run. As you can see, hundreds of runners showed up on race day. Here we are waiting for the run to start.

And here we go! Crossing the official Starting Line.

Weaving our way through downtown Des Moines.

Passing the Pappajohn’s Sculpture Park.

We’re away from the downtown buildings now. The visibility remained a few hundred yards due to the fog, as shown below.

Circling around a lake. Where’s the lake you may ask? I know you can’t see it, but just believe me, that’s a lake.

Crossing a foot bridge in Gray’s Lake. It was really gray indeed!

Even if it’s foggy and cool, we need to keep hydrated. Below are the paper cups thrown aside by the runners just past the water station.

Running around the Capitol building. The golden dome is barely visible due to the fog. It was about this time that I felt my legs starting to cramp. So I started to intermittently walk and run.

I almost crawled the last (13th) mile. But to look good for the spectators at the finish line, I ran fast for the final 0.2 to 0.3 miles to the Finish Line. As they always say, finish strong! Even if it just for a show.

Finally, me approaching the Finish Line! Look, a medical personnel is waiting.

(*all photos were taken by me, except for the last photo which was taken by my wife)