USMC 1/2 Marathon

This past weekend we went to Jacksonville, FL to run the USMC 1/2 marathon. Friday Mike, Adam and I drove down and met Lauren and Pat there. We had dinner that night and then we were all in bed by 10:30. We stayed in the host hotel which was conveniently located 3 miles from the start and finish of the race...? (and we didn't know until we got there friday) We decided just to grab a taxi on Saturday morning to the start. Big mistake. But you live and learn and now we'll know for next year. I was pretty nervous about the race because let's face it I'm in no shape to run 13 miles. The most I ran was 5 miles a week before the race. It was Mike's first half though so I was excited for him. Especially since he once said, "why the heck would you want to run that far voluntarily?" The weather was perfect for a race: cool and the sun stayed behind a cloud until mile 10. Thankfully Florida is really flat so we only had to worry about two hills and both were bridges. About mile 2 I can tell I'm going to have horrible blisters on my pinky toes, but I was determined not to focus on that. Lauren and I stayed together, okay she stayed back with me, the entire race until mile 12 when I told her to go ahead. She was really encouraging the whole and the race went by pretty fast. My goal was honestly just to finish, but we had said no longer than 2:30:00... which was hard for me to say because I'm really competitive and I ran way faster than that in my first half (too bad that was almost 6 yrs ago). So anyway I ran like a 2:23:00. Not impressive but it definitely got me wanting to start really running and racing again and ultimately a marathon hopefully next year. As soon as I crossed the finish there were two kids Marines that put my medal on and then another that handed us awesome USMC beer glasses that 5 minutes later I filled with free beer! There was food, beer, live music and Marines (including mine and Lauren's hardcore husbands) doing pull ups for t-shirts after the race. Then we had a 3 mile trek back to the hotel...with some giant blisters on my toes. We weren't sure if we could get free parking the morning of so we took a taxi to the race, but had no way to get back. Luckily Adam and Pat were feeling extra motivated and jogged back and got the car.

Since we didn't bring our cameras to the race these are us in the hotel when we got back. Now we know for next year to either stay in a different hotel or we can park free at the stadium and keep all of our stuff in the car. We decided to turn this into a tradition and run it every year. We had a blast and I think Mike may be hooked on the half! He's already talking about running the one in Atl on Thanksgiving!



Adam, Pat, Lauren, me, Mike
(if you notice Lauren and I's shorts... yes, those are silkies... we had to )