Half Marathon #5 since April of 2010 is now under my belt! Completed on May 5th, 2012.
This weekend I went up to Columbus, OH for the Capital City Half Marathon. I'm glad I got to run a race that wasn't in Nashville for once. I'm coming to a point where I want to run many different half marathons in different states, not just the same ones over and over again. So alas, I will not be running the Capital City again but it was a great experience. I wanted to start off with a pro and con list of my experience of the whole race weekend and then I'll share my experience during the race/after the race. Lastly, I'll be sharing lots of pictures and my split times!
Pros:
*FLAT COURSE with a few rolling hills
*Great gender specific tech tee's
*Awesome medals
*Great water/Gatorade stations
*Lots of bands/DJ's on the course
*Super nice police officers who were taking care of the intersections were so nice and cheered for us. Some of them even gave us high fives!
*After party (a pro and a con)-it would've been awesome if we would've been able to hang out and do all of the stuff but we all had to get going to do other things that afternoon. They did have a concert by a local group, free chocolate milk samples!, a fleet feet stretching area with foam rollers, yoga mats, and "the sticks" (I didn't get to enjoy them), lots of different booths, a massage booth with free massages (didn't get to enjoy that either), and a kettle corn booth (which DADDY bought us a huge bag of kettle corn, my favorite!)
Cons:
*Parts of the course were boring, cars were on the other side of the road (scary if something would've happened), and the brick road in German village was TERRIBLE! What an awful road to have a race on.
*The expo was very disappointing. The Swag bag didn't have any swag (samples) in it at all except for a bunch of papers.
*Not many spectators out on the course.
*By the time I finished, they had run out of orange slices, only had nasty green bananas, and the Panera table in runner's recovery only had plain and whole wheat bagels left (we heard they had cinnamon, blueberry, cheese, etc all the good bagels earlier).
*Apparently we didn't register early enough (even though we did about a month in advance) because our names weren't on the bibs, I didn't know that they were going to be on the bibs but I decided to write mine with a sharpie anyways!
Split times: *Look at the Avg pace column.---------------------right here
My race re-cap experience: I finished my 5th half marathon in 2 hours and 53 minutes.
My friend, Heather, has had some asthma issues during our training. We always run races and most of our long training runs together. However, this race, friend Heather told me to go on without her. She was going to finish but in her own pace. Apparently, I've learned how to run faster during my training. (During our run interval, I apparently would take off, the look beside me and friend wasn't there, she would catch up and say "GIRL, YOU ARE FAST!") I had no clue I was running that fast! Well, we had come to 5 1/2 miles and even though I thought it was too early to separate, she told me to go. So I went, ran 1 minute/ walked 1 minute over and over and over again. For the first couple intervals, I would turn around so I could still see her but as time went on, and crowds got heavier, I could no longer see my friend and I was sad. I just had to keep going if I was going to try for a PR. Heather said she could see me for about 3 quarters of a mile to a mile after we split. So I was still glad she kept an eye on me. I felt like we started out at a great pace. I didn't feel like we pushed too hard. Although we slowed it down during mile 4 and 5, we went through several water stations, there were some slight hills, etc. I missed my PR (needed to be under 2:50) but that is OKAY! I reached a big milestone during this race. It was that I could finish and push through on my own and that Heather pushed through and finished on her own. We both ran our own races and that was a big accomplishment. I used my iphone head phones that have the speaker piece for talking on the phone, Heather called me around mile 9 and she was just a half mile behind me but it was so great that we could encourage each other on the phone! I kept waiting on seeing my family or Heather's family during the race but apparently traffic was bad and roads were shut down. I finally saw my Daddy, brother Jacob and godfather Jeff at mile 11. Daddy was further up than jeff and jacob so he ran with me until he got up to Jacob and Jeff. I was so excited to see them! I then saw Heather's mother in law at mile 12.5, she encouraged me and said she was going back to find Heather. I saw Dad, Jeff, Jacob and my other brother Adam (who finished in 1 hour and 51 minutes!!!) around mile 13. I have .1 mile left to go and Adam ran with me for a bit and pushed me to finish hard and strong. Now onto some pictures!
The EXPO:
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| "It's only a dollar!" |
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Race Day:
I wanted to post more pictures but some of them were from iphones and even though they were saved in the right direction on my computer, they still uploaded sideways. Oh well!
That took me long enough to post! I'm excited to share a new adventure with you tomorrow!
Happy Tuesday!
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