And on to day two of the back-to-back weekend. I felt better this morning than I expected. No real sore muscles, just a bit fatigued. One of the benefits to taking it easy the day before.
Again, we lucked out, being near the start line. Walking to the start is the best. No super early mornings, no need to get there crazy early to beat traffic, etc.
Katie and I had one goal this day – we didn’t want to get diverted. Go! St. Louis is relatively “fashionably late” runner friendly (a new term from a new friend we met during the races), but if you don’t make it to mile 9 by a certain point, you get diverted. You still get to do the entire 13.1 miles, but you have to do it on a parallel course and some of it on sidewalks. No big deal, but we didn’t want to get diverted if possible.
We had heard that the fashionably late runners often didn’t get water on the course, but Katie and I didn’t have this problem. We did, however, find ourselves terribly disappointed when we got to the chocolate stop and it was not only out of chocolate but entirely cleaned up and tables put away. No delicious chocolate for us.
My mom isn’t a huge fan of this course, but I really liked it. St. Louis is a city with old buildings mixed in with the new, and it was fun to see it from a different perspective. I loved running through the brewery. Very cool to see all of those buildings. And I gave Katie a bit of a tour. “Here’s where my law school is now, here’s where it was when I went there, this is the hill I walked to get from the parking lot…” I’m pretty sure she was just humoring me by that point.
I personally thought Holy Hill was a hilarious part of the course. It’s a pretty long stretch of mostly uphill running, so not only does it have a name, but they play it up. The results have your split for Holy Hill, and I think the person who runs it the fastest gets an award. There are banners stretched over the start and finish of the hill and there was even a deacon flinging holy water on the runners. I was willing to take all the help I could get. But what a way to make what could be a horrid part of the course a fun part of the course.
Katie and I hit mile 9 and were still feeling good. No need to stop and walk. In fact, we kept up our intervals for most of the race (doing some extra walks on the uphills and extra runs on the downhills). We finished about a minute over our time from Lincoln without trying. That says we really did find a comfortable pace for us!
The best part of this race? The post race food! Oh my goodness, how delicious. I knew it was going to be good because my dad has raved about it. I have never heard him mention post-race food before, so when he talked about how good this was, I knew it had to be delicious. And it was. We finished the race, and they just kept handing us stuff. Fruit, pretzel bread, toasted ravioli, and the most delicious ice cream sandwich ever. YUM.
All in all, an awesome weekend. Next up was touristing, but first, a shower and some rest. And more food. Because what’s a girl’s weekend without food?