I have to admit, I was a little worried about this race.  Not about my training – in fact, I was excited to have a January race to force me to train during the holidays.  I was worried about the fact that it was an inaugural race.  I love runDisney.  I love Disney in general.  But I was nervous.  The inaugural Wine & Dine Half had a number of issues (that runDisney quickly corrected for the second year of the race – thank you runDisney!) and this past fall, the corrals for the Disneyland Half Marathon were a bit of a disaster.  A small issue to be sure, but if that’s what happens at an established race, what was going to happen at a new race?

Being a women’s race, they had plenty of merchandise, though the Dooney & Burke purses apparently flew off the shelves.  Not a concern to me – I didn’t want one.  But a bummer for others, I suppose.  Something else new they did for this race (and for Princess as well) is that they offered a commemorative necklace for purchase at the time of registration.  It was around $20, I believe, and I ordered one sight unseen because I figured I would rather waste $20 than later regret not spending the money.  The necklace is very simple – silver chain with two silver charms.  The circular charm is stamped with the logo of the race, and the other charm features Tink’s wings.  It’s pretty and I think the charms would be very pretty if put onto a running charm bracelet.

Now, onto the race itself.  This race was absolutely amazing from start to finish.  The corrals were incredibly well organized, with giant lighted letters at the back of the corrals and signs clearly pointing you where to go.  Definitely an improvement over the Disneyland Half.

I ran this race with Jenny, and we went with a 1:1 run/walk pattern because she’s still recovering from her AWESOME finish at the Walt Disney World Marathon a few weeks ago and because we were both a little tired from all the walking we did around the parks.  It’s a new pattern to me, and I think I liked it – it’s hard to say when dealing with legs that are already tired.

The announcers did a great job of keeping us entertained in the corrals, and they had a number of interviews, including the adorable Megyn Price and Sean Astin, who was talking about his #run3rd campaign – run first for yourself, second for your family, and third for someone important to you, someone struggling with something or who needs the extra thoughts.  It was very cool to see another celebrity runner out there to just have fun.

One notable figure missing from this event – Tinker Bell herself!  Of course, she was on the screen in animated form, but never seen elsewhere.  Kind of surprising, but I guess it would have been hard to have her featured.

I loved this race course.  It was so much better than the Disneyland Half.  We started out in Disneyland (you can’t beat running down Main Street towards the Castle), ran through Downtown Disney, spent some time on the streets of Anaheim, then back to California Adventure.  runDisney did a great job of having characters on the course in Disneyland (the Lost Boys on the Carousel were precious!) and the crowds in Downtown Disney were fabulous.  So many people cheering!  And then, I can’t not mention the Red Hat Society ladies.  Their group stretched for what felt like a quarter of a mile!  It was incredible!  Jenny and I were both in awe of how many of them were there.

I liked running through the streets of Anaheim.  There were people out on their front porches waving at the runners and probably wondering why there were so many cross-dressing men running through the streets.  It was much more fun than boring industrial Anaheim.

The finish area of the race was crowded, but not too terribly bad.  Clearly, everyone wanted finisher’s pics, which always holds up the line.

And the medal.  How can I forget the medal?  It’s absolutely gorgeous and Tink spins!  I found myself playing with it the rest of the day.  The only bad thing about Disney medals is the fact that they are SO HEAVY to wear the rest of the day.  I know, I know, first world problems.

I’m probably not going to be able to pull off running this race next year as they intend to move it to MLK weekend, making it back to back with Marathon weekend, which I would like to participate in next year.  But if you’re considering it, I highly recommend it.  It’s an awesome event.

Last weekend, I ran the Disney Princess Half Marathon with a bunch of my ROTE friends.  My mom and my sister ran too, their first race ever.  How exciting!  You may remember that I tried to run this race last year and caught a stomach bug the night before the race and was unable to run.  So this was my redemption year.

First off, the weather was ridiculous.  Not hot, just very very humid.  The air was super thick.  That made for a rough race.  Unfortunately, Kim, my running partner, had some travel issues and didn’t make it down for the race, so I was debating who I wanted to run with.  I started off with Steve, Katie, and Kelly, then Kelly and I broke off, ran into Laura, and then Kelly broke off and I stuck with Laura.

It was such fun running with someone!  It meant we could take pictures.

And pictures were taken!  We didn’t want to wait in the line for the crazy photos, but we still had fun.

Oh, and see that skirt?  My mom made it for me!  Awesome, isn’t it?

Well, after months of training in the cold Maryland weather, the heat finally got to us.  Poor Laura looked like she was going to collapse.  So we slowed down significantly.  Definitely my worst half marathon time.  But we finished, we got medals, finished the first half of the Coast to Coast challenge, took some great pictures, and that’s what matters.  It was a great time.  I can’t wait for next year’s race!

And it was.  But not in a bad way.

I signed up for this race after I realized how close I was to achieving Half Fanatic status.  I just needed one more race sometime in November to make it.  And then I found this little race only 2.5 hours away.  Sounded perfect!

This was an inaugural race in a tiny town, but it was being run by a national race company, so I figured the support would be good and that it would be a well-run race. And I was pleased.  Colleen picked up my packet from the expo, so I can’t say much about that (and if it was even a real expo at all).  Nice tech t-shirt though.  Can’t complain about that.  Chip timing too.  Very important.

On race morning, we showed up, and because of traffic, they started the race a little bit late.  It was frustrating, since it was COLD, but nice for all those stuck in traffic.  There weren’t corrals – just start where you think you should start and get running.  Very quickly, I realized I was going to be in the back of this particular race.  I knew it was small, probably around 1000 people or so, but it welcomed walkers and had a 4 hour time limit, so I hoped I wasn’t going to be completely last.  I forced myself to not worry about my placement and just run smart.  I knew that pushing too hard would lead to disaster and I just needed to finish to get HF status.

I have to admit, in my head, I knew that my PR was 13:15 minute miles.  So if I could just keep things a bit faster than that, I’d have an easy new PR.  Considering my PR was based on a Disney race with photo stops (and a bathroom break) it was definitely feasible, but this course was HILLY.  So I wasn’t sure.

I set out with my 2:1 run/walk pattern and just kept on running.  Slow, but not too slow.  The course was gorgeous.  Farmhouses and wonderful Mennonite families out watching the race (not cheering, just watching, occasionally returning a wave).  The water stops were manned by Mennonite children, which was beyond adorable.  I found myself running among the same group of people, and we had a good time.  We were near the back, so they were letting cars pass, some more politely than others.  And of course, there were horses and buggys.  At one point, we almost got run over by a milk truck trying to pull in to a driveway.   That was a fun moment. But we all survived.

By mile 11, I knew that I had a PR.  I just had to keep moving and it was mine.  So I kept moving, even with all the crazy hills.  Actually, I think my run/walk pattern really helped with the hills.  Giant hill?  Just alter the plan so I’m walking up them and running down.  Easy as pie.  Except for that slightly gravelly hill.  But it was still doable.  And I came around the last turn and finished strong.  I felt great when I finished.  Not exhausted, not nauseous, not sore, just happy.  It was an awesome feeling.  The PR was mine, and HF was mine.  A great day all in all.

I really think I might run this race again next year.  Sure, I was probably one of the last 50 finishers, but it was such a gorgeous course that it was worth it.  I’m also a bit of a solo runner, so I didn’t mind being fairly alone.  I also had my music, which was nice, though weird when I ran past the Mennonite families while listening to Lady Gaga.  But then something slow and classical would come on as I ran past the wide open fields and it was beautiful.

This was my first race with the ROTE contingent! Unfortunately, I didn’t meet up with them til afterwards.

As the title indicates, this 10K is part of the Marine Corps Marathon weekend, and with that comes a lot of perks. The expo was possibly the best expo I’ve been to in a long time – and from what I hear, it was smaller than last year! Great goody bags with lots of fun samples, and amazing vendors. I got to talk to the KT Tape people (who have amazing customer service) and I finally bought the running necklace that I’ve been searching for. The one thing I didn’t find was a long-sleeved red technical shirt. They have them for men, but all the womens’ shirts were in “girly” colors. Not that I’m complaining about girly colors, but I really wanted red.

This race was on Halloween, which meant that there were a lot of people in costume.  I am a little embarrassed to say that I was beaten by a guy in a crab costume running sideways.  Yeah.

Strangely enough, this was my first 10K.  I’m not sure how I missed this distance before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Sure, I had run 10Ks in training, but never as a race.  I wasn’t sure how to pace myself.  It wasn’t as long as a 10 miler, but definitely required more stamina than a 5K.  Either way, first race, so it’s a PR, right?

Finished in 1:20:25!  I struggled with letting my HR get too high, because it was “only” a 10K, so I shouldn’t have needed the walk breaks, right?  Well, I paid for that later.  I was absolutely wrecked by the end of the day.  Of course, that could have been due to what I did the rest of the day.

I met up with a number of ROTErs and we made our way to around the 22 mile mark of the marathon, where we met up with even more ROTErs.  And we cheered.  And we cheered and we cheered and we cheered.  We cheered on our friends and we cheered on strangers.  We cheered until the last person passed us.  And man, what fun that was.  I think that might have been the best part of the day.

It’s intense.  And it always makes me want to run faster and run stronger.

Now on to my run.  Since being diagnosed with heart rate issues (must write post about that), I’ve had to slow down.  In fact, I’m thinking that I should set up a series of new PR goals – PRs for “before” issues and PRs for “after.”  I know that I’m never going to beat my old 10 miler PR, but it would be nice to have a new PR to go along with my new run/walk pattern.

For this race, I used a 2/1 walk/run pattern.  It felt a little bit slow, but I have to say, I felt really strong for the whole race.  My first mile was faster than the others, and that’s probably a bit because of the excitement of a race and a bit because of the way I set my watch.  Because I like that my Garmin 305 shows me my mile splits, I have it set to beep every 3 minutes, and then when it beeps, I watch it for the minute of walking.  So that means that for the first 3 minute interval, I run all 3 minutes.   I had moments where my HR got high, but I forced myself to just slow down, and my average HR for every mile was a very healthy point.

It was a bit of a weird race because a stranger discovered I was doing a 2/1 pace and decided to run with me.  She joked about hijacking my run.  I was alternately irritated and glad to have the company.  Ultimately she couldn’t keep up (though at times, I felt as though she was pushing me), and I lost her around mile 7.  I’ve never run with someone before, but I clearly should try it at some time.

My finishing time?  2:09:36.  A far cry from my old goal of 1:50:00.  But I’m really happy with that.  I kept a sub 13:00 pace.  I probably could have kept it up.  Based on this race, I think that PRing on a half marathon isn’t out of reach.  Not sure if it’s going to happen in my next race (two weeks after this one), but we’ll see.

The Army Ten Miler has some nice finisher’s bling.  Instead of a medal, it’s a Finisher’s Coin, in true military tradition.  It’s a great thing to have, something to pocket for a good luck charm or just keep on a dresser to remind you of your accomplishments.

One friend who I thought would commit was out of town. Forgiven.  Another signed up and then ended up out of town. Forgiven.  The others?  Who knows.  So that meant it was just me.

Really, it was a well-timed race.  I ran a 10 miler last weekend and am running another one next weekend, so I wasn’t really sure what sort of workout to do this weekend.  A 5K race seemed as good an idea as any.  And hey, a girl can always use another t-shirt.  Especially an organic cotton one.

This course was surprisingly hilly, but also nice.  It ran partway along a trail that I didn’t realize existed.  Terrible of me, given just how close it is to my apartment.  I may have to check it out again sometime.  I knew during the first mile that this was going to be a tough race.  It was an out and back and the first mile was very much downhill.  Which meant that the last mile was very much uphill.

Great race support.  Tons of volunteers dancing and cheering people on.  They seemed to be enjoying themselves much more than the runners.  Or maybe they were just trying to keep moving because of how cold it was.  When I left my apartment, it was 39 degrees out!  Not bad running weather, but I was definitely cold afterwards.

I really didn’t worry too much about time on this one.  Someday, I want to do a 5K in under 30 minutes, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon and I’m okay with that.  I finished in 32:34, only 30 seconds off my PR from a few years back.  And much better than the 5K I ran last summer with my old roommate where we ran slow and I felt gross afterwards.

I have to admit, when I saw that one of the race sponsors was Whole Foods, I was excited.  That had to mean tasty post-race food, right?  I mean, let’s be honest.  We run to eat.  And I was right.  Post race, we had water and  bananas and Clif Bars and HonestTea and VitaCoco (their van is adorable!).  Run to eat, baby, run to eat.

And then I went to Whole Foods and got breakfast, loitered in Borders for an hour or so reading triathlon books, then went and picked up my race packet for next week’s race.  April is a crazy month for me.

Somehow, I managed to convince some friends from college to run the race as well.  It’s amazing how so many of us have become runners.  The joke is that we were so lazy in college that we would order pizza rather than walk to the dining hall (which couldn’t have been a full block walk).  Now we voluntarily go out and run ten miles.

I was really hoping to finally make this the race where I finally break 1:50 for a ten mile race.  Yes.  I’m slow.  At the beginning of the year, this was a feasible goal, but after getting sick in March and getting thrown off my training schedule, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  A PR was definitely a possibility though.

The course itself is gorgeous.  It starts and finishes near the Washington Monument and, of course, passes tons of cherry trees.  It’s a relatively flat course, and it’s always a fun race.  It’s not a huge race, but it’s a good group of people.  The course is well-staffed, and there’s always someone offering beer somewhere along the course.  This year it was beer and Oreos.  Deeeelicious. Not that I ate any.

I knew that I was the slowest of my group of friends and fully intended to finish last, which was okay by me.  I even figured I would be in the last corral.  But I was wrong!  My time from last year bumped me into the second to last corral.  A green bib at last!  I was so excited.  So we got to start together, and then promptly lost each other.  As I ran, I was checking my watch.  For the first few miles, I thought that maybe my 1:50 goal was in reach.  But as I settled into my pace, I realized it just wasn’t going to happen.  I was going to be close, but it wasn’t really doable.  That was solidified when I got stopped up at a water stop around mile 6.  I wasn’t even getting water, there was just an unusual collision of people and some girl slipped in front of me.  She was okay, but it was all a time delay.

By the last mile, I just kept chanting in my head “One more mile, less than 12 minutes to go” (knowing that my pace was closer to an 11 minute mile at that point).  And I kept counting down.  Six minutes.  Five minutes.  Three minutes.  I can do anything for three minutes.  And then it was done.

Final time?  1:51:32.  Only 92 seconds over my goal.  And a new PR!  Averaged an 11:10 pace.  Last year it was an 11:17 pace, so I’m improving.  I’ve got two more ten milers this year (one in a week!) but I think the Cherry Blossom course is going to be where I finally hit that goal, thanks to the lack of hills.  Maybe next year!

And now for the details that those of you thinking of running this race want to know.  Transportation to the race?  Easy.  Metro opens early.  Course amenities?  Water and Gatorade, pretty standard fare.  Post-race amenities?  Water, bananas, and muffins.  Again, pretty standard fare.  This year, they also offered the option to purchase a finisher’s medal (purchased when you register).  I didn’t purchase one, but I saw people wearing them and they were pretty.  The expo is small, but nice.  Good number of vendors and they do what they can to keep the lines moving.  It does get crowded picking up your number.  Not much swag involved in this race packet.  A t-shirt (that’s always horribly brightly colored) with the option of upgrading to a technical t-shirt.  Info about other races.  Nothing exciting.

All in all, I’m happy with how this race turned out.  I was nervous, knowing how slow I am and how fast my friends are, but it seemed like everyone was happy to wait for the slow runners to finish.  And that’s always nice.