Yeah, I stole that image. Admitting it is half the battle right? P.S. Anyone else think it's ridiculous that my bestie doesn't even sweat or look tired after doing a half marathon as a fun run?
Friday night I laughed too much with my bestie, Bee, and stayed up a bit too late, but it was all in good fun. Thankfully the Baltimore Half Marathon doesn't start until 9:45am and that meant I got to sleep in until 7:30 on Saturday morning. Most races start at 7am, so sleeping until 7:30 felt like I slept through the whole day.
I complained a bit (naturally) about the late start time, but then it dawned on me that it was better for the marathoners to have more runners on the course during the later miles. The two other marathons that I've run that also have a half marathon portion have the half marathoners start off with the full marathoners and then the halfers peel off somewhere on the course. That really thins out the crowd and can suck if you're running with someone at a decent pace and then they ditch you. All of the Baltimore Marathoners wear a "full" tag on their backs while they're running and I've got to say that for miles 10-13 of the half, miles 23-26 of the marathon, all of the half marathoners were cheering and encouraging the full marathoners. It's better than crowd support when it's other runners pulling you towards the finish. At least that's what I thought. I hope to give a full marathoner's perspective next year when I finally run the Baltimore Marathon.
As for the race, Bee and I wanted to run the half at our marathon pace. I was hoping to run a tad faster than marathon pace and run in the 8:40 - 8:50 per mile time frame. I ran a 1:56 half marathon so I achieved my goal. Bee ran a bit too fast, but not fast enough that she's worried about not recovering before Marine Corps. Eeck that's in less than two weeks!
Greatest thing about Saturday's run was seeing the hubs on course. He had to work on Saturday at a site in Baltimore and he was able to walk over during the race to see if he could find me. His timing was near perfect and he only had to wait 15 minutes to see me run by. I ran over to him and gave him a massive high five and then just kept on chugging by. We're dorky like that.
Anyone else run a race in the Baltimore Running Festival? What was your takeaway? The weather was gorgeous and that's always a perk when running for a few hours.
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