So I’m a couple weeks behind in my race reports, but a few weeks ago, I ran the Zooma Annapolis 10K.\u00a0 The Zooma races started in Annapolis, and this was the 5th anniversary.\u00a0 No anniversary celebrating, unfortunately.<\/p>\n
A friend did packet pickup for us, and well, it didn’t sound so organized.\u00a0 Rather than assign bib numbers prior to pickup, you show up and get your bib assigned there.\u00a0 One fun thing is that it means you and your friends can have sequential numbers.\u00a0 But it does tend to take more time.<\/p>\n
Race morning, we arrived at the start.\u00a0 Ample parking – hooray!\u00a0 The race also featured a half marathon, and the two races started together.\u00a0 I will say, there were a lot of fun skirts being worn.\u00a0 I love that running skirts are popular!\u00a0 So comfy and cute.<\/p>\n
Katie, Jen, and I ran together, and met up with Monica at the start.\u00a0 She was running the half, so planned to pace a big slower than us.\u00a0 Additionally, Katie was thinking she might want to try for a new PR, so we were setting off on a solid pace.\u00a0 After all my races over the past few weeks, I wasn’t sure if my body could keep up, but I was willing to give it a shot.<\/p>\n
The race itself was nice.\u00a0 Pretty course.\u00a0 Annapolis is a pretty town though, so it’s hard to have a bad race course there.\u00a0 Our friend Jon was working medical for the race and someone let him drive the cart.\u00a0 We had too much fun picking on him when we saw him.\u00a0 “Who let you drive?”\u00a0 We hit the turnaround and saw Monica, who had decided to also turnaround at the 10K point and not do the half.\u00a0\u00a0 The weather wasn’t great and she had been racing more than I had this spring.\u00a0 Smart move – run a strong 10K rather than kill yourself for a half you don’t really care about.<\/p>\n
Pushed Katie to her PR and met Kelly at the finish.\u00a0 Cheered Monica in.\u00a0 This race features a finisher’s necklace.\u00a0 In previous years, I wasn’t so impressed, but this year’s necklace is really cute!\u00a0 It’s a silver disc that says “run” in script with a little black bead hanging next to it.\u00a0 Initially, I thought I would just add the necklace to my medal hanger, but this necklace is definitely going into wardrobe rotation.<\/p>\n
After the race, there were nice little meal boxes and wine, since Barefoot Wine was a sponsor.\u00a0 Not a bad way to celebrate.\u00a0 But we had bigger and better things planned.<\/p>\n