I Like Medals, Okay?

2 years ago today, I ran my first half marathon.

This past weekend, I ran my 9th. Both in the same place, and both a crazy experience. So let's take a little look back at the whirlwind that was this weekend.

I was originally scheduled to do the 8K and Full Marathon challenge. However, after suffering through 26.2 miles at Marine Corps, I wasn't too fond of doing that again so soon. So I transferred down to the 8K and Half Marathon Challenge. Why the challenge? I like medals.

So when Outer Banks Sporting Events posted this photo on Wednesday, I had a change in plans:

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I immediately sent the picture to my mom and said, "Look at that Fun Run medal! We have to do it!"

After some quick searching to see if I had to be under a certain age (all ages welcome!) we signed up. Then I looked at the schedule of events and noticed that the 5K was in the middle of the two, perfectly timed to do all 3. And so a weekend of bling was born.

Friday (Expo Day)

I don't normally write about race expos, but I felt like this one needed to be written about. This is my third time running with Outer Banks Sporting Events (OBXSE) and I found this expo to be extremely unorganized. Since I hadn't registered for the Fun Run and 5K in time for my name to be on my bib, I wasn't assigned a number prior to the expo. I was sent around to 3 tables before someone could help me and everyone seemed like they were already tired of answering questions (the expo hadn't even been open an hour). So after being tossed around and assigned a number on the spot (which felt a little sketchy), I went to pick up my shirts.

Normally, OBXSE shirts run super huge. I rarely wear my 2013 OBX Half shirt because it looks like it's eating me. They tend to stick to unisex tech shirts. This year, I had seen Women's XS as an option and picked it thinking, "Oh boy! Finally a shirt that will fit me!" Well, that was a wrong assumption. This year they went for a long sleeve cotton blend. That XS was way too small! I eventually got to trade it for a Medium, but I had to wait until the next day to do so. Apparently it was a wide-spread problem and they were going to rush print some more. Working in that world, I know there was a very stressed out race director somewhere trying to solve this problem and I commend them for trying to make it right with everyone.

After the chaos that was the expo, I got to lay on the beach. That's right, the beach. In North Carolina. In November. The weather was apparently very confused, but hey I'll take it.

Saturday

The schedule for the morning was the 8K at 7:30, 5K at 9:30, and Fun Run at 11:15. The weather at 7:30 was gorgeous. The forecast the day before had called for rain but it was warm, and sunny, and actually pretty humid. I felt like I was lining up for a June race instead of one in November!

8K
All 3 races were pretty uneventful, and they all followed the same course, just cut shorter and shorter each time. The 8K took us pretty far into Nags Head Woods, which I had ran during Flying Pirate back in the Spring. I was glad to see they had sprayed the dirt parts down because they can get really dusty with so many people running on them! I was pretty nauseous this whole race so I had to stop and walk more than I would have liked. I'm pretty proud of never having thrown up during a race and I wanted to keep it that way!

5K
I must have sweated out all the bad things that were making me nauseous because this one felt great! The heat was disgusting since it was getting later in the morning. It was almost 80! We didn't go into the Woods as far, so a lot of the course wasn't shaded. Since it was so hot, I ran slower but still managed to run the whole thing. I also finished fast enough to land 4th in my age group!

Fun Run
Mom and I stuck together for this one, and by that point the sun was boiling. I really wanted that cute stingray medal, though.

At the end of the day, I got my first 3 medals for the weekend!

Of course I had to a) wear my medals to lunch (I was not the only one in Barefoot Bernie's doing so) and b) get a picture with the tiki!

The weather was so nice that we even got to lay out for another few hours after we got back! There was a surf competition taking place right in front of our house and we had prime seating for it. I might have fallen asleep though...

Sunday

Overnight, a huge storm moved in, making the weather turn a complete 180. It really wasn't that cold (mid-50s when I woke up) but man, the wind gusts were bad. They were approaching 30mph at some points and made it feel a lot colder. Like the cold natured person I am, I put a quarter zip shirt on over my t-shirt thinking I would be fine the whole time and I pinned my bib to it.

Well, that lasted all of about a mile. The wind was at our back about 90% of the entire race (which was amazing, by the way) so the true temperature was really taking effect. I awkwardly had to stop and take off my jacket and re-pin my bib to my shirt. I'm kicking myself for not just tying it to my front with the bib facing out, because I can almost guarantee I would have PRed the entire race! But, it's too late to fuss over that now.

Sometimes, I have races where I feel great the first couple of miles and then bomb about halfway through. This was (thankfully) the complete opposite. I felt awful the first 4 miles and just mentally switched gears to "just finishing". I was running without a watch and had no clue what my pace was, and there were no clock on the entire course so I was just running by how I felt. Then, around 4.5 I started to feel good. Really good. That tailwind was making my life easy! The weather was great! Life was fantastic!

The first time I ran this race, the bridge killed me. But I went up over the "hill" easily (while mentally chanting "This is not as bad as Farm Basket hill" over and over... it really wasn't even comparable) and on the other side, I got a shark selfie, something I had done in my first race!

The shark was totally flattered that I wanted a pic with him. He was really into it. 

After the bridge (and shark) was mile marker 11. At this point I felt really good and kicked it into gear. At this point I was actually passing more people than were passing me (which lets be honest, rarely happens to me).

The last stretch to the finish line was right into the wind and it made me extremely happy that we weren't running into it the whole time. I crossed the clock and it read 2:25, but I was in the 3rd wave to start so I know it had to be faster than that.

I did a really bad job of centering my bib when I moved it!

My official time was 2:19. My current PR is 2:15, so if I would have pushed a little harder and not adjusted my stupid bib, I probably could have beaten it. But the important part here is that my first half time on that course 2 years ago was 2:43. I've got a special blog post for when I hit #10 but let me say so much has changed in those 2 years, and I've loved every step of the journey.

And now for the really important part. The final haul!

Overall, I LOVE this race, and am already considering doing it again next year. It kind of helps that it's in my favorite place in the world, but it's a high quality race with great swag (once they got the shirt situation fixed) that included a finisher hat and a pint glass!

So until next time, I leave you with this fantastic shirt I found in a gift shop later that day:

26.2 Things That Happened During the Marine Corps Marathon Weekend

I've put off writing this post because I think I needed this long to process everything that happened this past weekend. My mom and I traveled to DC on Thursday afternoon, went to the race expo Friday and played tourist the rest of the say and all day Saturday, the race was Sunday, and then we came home and I went to work on Monday.

So here is a little synopsis of all that happened!

1. I learned that you can park in Springfield-Franconia and take the metro into the city. Also, if you aren't used to public transportation at all, the metro is scary. But we caught on soon enough. But it sure beats trying to drive in the city if you aren't used to that.
2. We ate at the worst restaurant ever. We asked a lady at our hotel where we should go for Mexican food. The place she suggested was possibly the worst place we could have eaten. We consulted Yelp for the remainder of the trip. 
3. The race expo happened. 
   
4. I bought a ton of Brooks Merchandise. Brooks is the official sponsor of MCM and they had some amazing things in their store for purchase. Since I figured this is possibly the only MCM I will run (at least for a while), I got #allthethings. 
5. Brooks had an amazing photo booth. Not only was the background they gave you pretty cool, but you got an instant print out, and could text them to get it sent to your phone!
   
6. I left the expo with tons of free things. Normally I leave race expos with one or two things that I'll actually use. This time I left with a free t-shirt from Cupid's Undie Run, a full size box of band aids, tons of stickers, snd some Nuun water bottles (free with purchase). 
7. We shopped until we almost dropped. We had so many great stores within walking distance that we had to hit them all up! Even the ones *coughkatespadecough* that we couldn't afford. 
8. I ate at the best restaurant ever. If you are ever in DC and want to eat at a semi-fancy restaurant, check out Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak, and Stone Crab. Every bite of my meal was delicious and when they brought out my crab bisque I wanted to cry at how good it was. I'm convinced that I will never again have food that good in my lifetime. 
   
9. We went to the National Zoo. I was actually a little disappointed at the Zoo. I went once when I was about 9 and remembered it being about 10 times bigger than it was. (I was also about half the size I am now last time I went). I had hyped it up so much in my mind that it fell a little short of my expectations. But it was still an enjoyable experience. 
10. We tried Baked & Wired. Everyone says to go to Georgetown Cupcake, but take my word for it. These bad boys are the real winning cupcakes of the city. 
    
11. I tried deep dish pizza for the first time. I promise I did more than eat during this trip. I just have to talk about all the amazing food DC gave us. And that one that wasn't so good. 
12. I went to bed really early. I tried really hard to fall asleep at 8 on Saturday, but I was starting to get really nervous. My first marathon didn't go so well last year and I really wanted to redeem myself. It turns out I had good reason to worry because the next morning...
13. I waited over an hour in the security line. I got off the metro at the start line at 6:20 thinking I would have plenty of time to get in, use the bathroom, and get in my starting corral before the 7:55 gun time. Very quickly we learned that the security line was not moving fast. I made friends with the people around me in line and we talked but soon the clock said 7 and we had barely moved (and when I say barley I mean about 15 feet). At 7:30 we still hadn't moved much more and everyone was getting antsy. 7:45 rolled around and the Marines operating security decided to speed things up by using metal detector wands instead of just the walk through units they had been using. That sped things up, but it was still chaos. 
14. In that chaos, I lost my headband. Which, I might add, was a brand new Sparkly Soul band I had just bought the day before. We had to remove our jackets if they didn't have a zipper (mine didn't) and it popped right off. I didn't notice it until I was halfway to the start. I HATE running without a band and I was already frazzled from security taking so long. I almost had a meltdown but I had a start line to get to.
15. I walked almost a mile to the start line. According to my fitbit, I walked almost 3 miles on top of the marathon distance that day. I'm not sure what was before and what was after, but I know the start line was what felt like a mile away from the start. 
16. I started. Just like that (with a quick potty detour, I was on my way to starting my second marathon!)
17. I ran slower than I wanted, because I really wanted to pace myself. Last year I burnt out at mile 13, and I wasn't about to let that happen. 
    
18. The Blue Mile made me cry. At mile 11 I was starting to hit a "man I really don't want to do this anymore" mentality. Then we hit the blue mile. If you are unfamiliar with MCM, the entirely of mile 11-12 is lined with the faces of those who have fallen while serving in the military. I resolved to look every single man and woman on my side of the road in the eyes and really take in what it meant to be running this race. Suddenly, despite the crying, I wasn't so tired anymore.
19. I read a ton of great race signs. Among them were "If you thing this is hard, try growing out bangs!" "You're not almost there!" (at around mile 2 or so), and my personal favorite, a Shiba Inu with a sign over his head that said "Such fast. Much wow," (from the Doge meme)
    
20. I took selfies with monuments.
    
21. At around mile 17, I really wanted to quit. Pretty much more than anything I have ever wanted in my life. I was over the race. I even texted my mom, "I think I'm going to die." I had forgotten how much I hated running over 15 miles (even though my 20 mile training run had reminded me very well). I actually had to slip into a porta potty and have a bit of a pity party cry fest to get over myself. It was then that I told myself I had to finish, for those who couldn't run. And for the Girls on the Run girls I was wearing my SoleMates shirt for. My bargain to myself was that if I finished, I would transfer from the full to half at the Outer Banks Marathon.
22. I beat the bridge. Thankfully, despite my pity party and complain-fest, I beat the dreaded cut off at the bridge. With a lot of time to spare, actually. It felt like it took about 3 years to cross the stupid thing, but I did it.
    
23. I got a kiss from the cutest spectator at mile 22. I will always have time to say hi to dogs. Especially French Bulldogs.
24. I walked the last 2 miles. My feet were screaming. I was hot. I was beyond tired. I hated running. I hated everything. I was nauseous. I was also hungry. But then there was a Marine who said, "Nice socks, now get them to the finish!" I couldn't not listen to a Marine, so I kept going.
25. I finished. The finish line at MCM is up a hill. About .25 miles out from the finish the Marines make an almost tunnel and cheer you in. The moment I first saw them I started bawling. I had too many emotions inside me. Not only the pain of running/slogging through 26 miles, but the sadness from the Blue Mile and seeing the many, many people running in memory of fallen service members. The inspiration I had gotten from seeing those wounded running on prosthetics or hand-cycling the marathon. The overwhelming pride of being an American.
    
26. I got my medal placed on me by a Marine. And we shared a moment. And a selfie.

And the final thing the final thing, the number 26.2 on this list, is that I swore I would never do another marathon again. That lasted all of two days before I switched to saying "I'm never doing another marathon for a very long time." Baby steps :)

Unlocked a new highest steps in a day badge with my Fitbit!

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