Gary here. At the hive, wellness is never far from our minds. That said, my recent experience running a half marathon with my brother was probably motivated more by a healthy sibling rivalry than anything else.

Rewind a few months to last Christmas. Neither my brother or I are “runners” per se, but sports have always been a big part of our lives. As collegiate soccer players, we both considered ourselves to be in pretty good shape, so when he threw out the idea of running a half marathon, I signed us up.

Four months later I was standing with my brother on the starting line, surrounded by 5,000 other runners who all seem a bit more prepared than I felt. I was sure they all:

• Had their own running shoes.
• Didn’t play a soccer game the night before.
• Were happy to be there.

At this point, I started thinking about how far 13.1 miles really is. Needless to say, the few runs I had gone on weren’t quite that far. And then there was the rain. Yep, it rained hard. The entire race.

Rain aside, one hour, thirty minutes and twenty three seconds after the starting gun went off, I managed to haul my cold, wet and tired body over the finish line. My brother was about 30 seconds ahead of me. Much to our surprise we ended up placing 2nd and 3rd for our age group (19-24). Not too bad for a couple of soccer-kicking wanna-be runners.

When it’s all said and done, the race was a great exercise (pun intended) for getting out of my comfort zone. The jury is still out on whether this was a one time thing, but who knows? I do know that when someone asks me when I was the most miserable in 2013, I now have an answer. And if there is a next time, this 23-year-old is going to do a little more training.