Baltimore Race Recap

I ran my first non-family half marathon this weekend. I ran it with my friend Emily and her husband Richard, and it went much better than I was expecting. Emily pulled her hamstring a couple of weeks ago so I was expecting to walk a good amount of the race because of her injury. But we ended up only walking about .25 miles, once right after mile 7 and once right after mile 10. Other than that we ran the whole thing, and it actually felt great.

Until the next morning when neither of us could walk without hobbling. Overall though, this was one of the best and worst half-marathons for me.

Pros:

• Spectators were amazing. They were on the sidelines throughout every inch of the course handing out everything from gummy bears to mardi gras beads. I wasn't bored once.
• Pretending like I was "motivating/pacing" my friend. Definitely helped motivate myself.
• Hotel Monaco- my friend got a great deal so we stayed about 1/2 mile from the race start. Amazing pillows and a short walk to the starting line.
• It rained a little during the race so it made me feel like a real runner.
• Finishing another race and picking out the next one.
• The race gear- very nice Under Armor tech shirts and a cute crab medal.

Cons:

• Support stations on the course weren't great. The good stuff like bananas were gone by the time we got to the stations, and they were giving out things like whole oranges. Have you ever tried to peel an orange while running?
• The pickup/expo was organized, but they made up walk to one side of the expo for step 1, the other side for step 2, and back to the first side for step 3. Apparently they didn't think 13.1 miles was quite enough.
• We ran up a hill. We ran down a hill. Repeat. I've never been so sore after a race. I think I'm going to stick to only running races with "flat and fast" in the description.
• It was my running shoes' last race. Say hello to their pink sister.