Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon

The Red Felts descended upon Fredericksburg, VA, this weekend for the Marine Corps Historic Half.  As I've learned, the Marines put on the best races. Well organized and awesome course support!!  And when you need a push, there's something about a Marine yelling at you to "keep going" "you've got this"!!  

Pre-Race:  About 40 Felters met up for dinner the night before the race!!  A bit overwhelming at first, but completely awesome to meet up with friends who I usually only get to chat with online! 

Race Day:  A 5am wake up call is never fun.  I always question my sanity about racing on race mornings :)  We unfortunately didn't make the large RFRC meetup due to the road closures, but we had a small mini-meet up at the hotel.  The hotel location was perfection!  Walking distance to the Start/Finish/Expo!  It was nice staying inside until it was go time!

Course:  Holy Hills Batman!!   I was warned about "Hospital Hill", but I had no idea about the others that were thrown in for fun.  Gotta love the Marines sense of humor !!   I found a really great pace for the first 3 miles, then hit the 1st hill and completely lost steam (and started feeling the affects of the humidity).  After mile 5, I just couldn't get my groove back and then luckily met up with a couple friends along course!  Always a pick me up!  Running is such a mental game for me.  At mile 10, I can usually "suck it up" and say "only a 5K to go"!  Mile 10 for the Historic Half is where Hospital Hill started, so the last 5K was primarily all uphill!  OUCH!   Luckily Will.I.Am came blasting through my headphones with #thatPOWER right then.  Miles 11-12 were really, really hard.  I wanted to stop, I wanted to quit.  Then I found Ed on course again - gotta love the RFRC shirts!  I finished strong for the last mile in and my time was 2:18:07 for the Half.  Not my best, not my worst, but definitely my most challenging race to date, both physically and mentally.  And being presented your medal (which are HUGE) by a Marine is humbling! 

Running has shown me that you CAN do it, not to ever give up, and running with friends is the best gift ever!  This weekend was wonderful even though I sit here the following morning nursing sore muscles!  

If you've never run a Marine Corps race, put one on your to-do list!  They are the most organized and well supported races I've ever had the pleasure of doing!   Looking forward to October where I can see all these wonderful people again and to run with the Marines!

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Miler - April 7, 2013

Well, after being "off" for months, it's time to get back on the horse (aka road)!!  I signed up for the lottery to this race long before my stress fracture and nagging hip injury!!   So after being good and not running per doctors orders, and completing my physical therapy, I'm cleared to run again.   Most likely my doc and physical therapist are not thinking "Hey, go run a 10 miler right away", but it is what it is!   I've decided to tackle the 10 miles instead of switching to the 5K.  I just like distance running (well, maybe I do)!!  At least I was going with friends, so I wasn't going alone :)

Met up with some RFRC friends at the Expo!

I decided to get a hotel room since this was an early morning DC race!  As an added bonus, Rose came up from NC to run with me, and we were able to go to the RFRC Pre-race dinner meet up!  So much fun meeting up with others that I had only met through the online group, and great seeing those I had met at MCM back in October!
 

RFRC Dinner Meet Up

Race morning was cold, really, really COLD!!  And the wind just made it even worse!  This is a Spring race, right?  The Cherry Blossoms were barely out for the race this year.  Even they were too cold!!  So we hunkered down and waited until it was time to head to the Start Line!

Crystal and Rose shivering!

My goal for this race - just FINISH !   And I did just that!  I actually ran the whole 10 miles after being off for months, and only getting a couple short runs in beforehand.  Crystal stayed with me the whole race, which is probably the only reason I didn't stop.  I finished in 1:43:11 (10:19 pace).  Definitely helped me regain some confidence that I could handle long distance running again!

 

Some of the RFRC Group after the race!

This was a nice race around the DC monuments!  I definitely enjoyed the scenery!  Just hope that if I do this race again, it's a little warmer :)

Marine Corps Marathon - Part 2 - On Course

Part 2 .... Now we're running....

So now we're off and running.  The first few miles really went fast.  There were so many people around and the course was beautiful.  Unfortunately my legs were really, really feeling the "burn" early on!  No running the week before let all that lactic acid build up. 


Right after the start!

Miles 2-4:  Here is where my muscles were burning, but the scenery was beautiful!  This is also where I got behind the Semper Fi Fund runner that had a prostetic leg.  I told myself right then to shut up about any pain I had!!  He was amazing!!   There was also a group of Marines marching the marathon with HUGE backpacks!  So in awe of them!



Headed into mile 3 !

Miles 6-8:  We were hitting the hilliest section of the course here, but we had a group come up behind us singing a Ke$ha song over and over.  "Your love, your love, your love, is my drug"  LOL  It was entertaining.  Then some girls in front of us screamed and jumped.  Well, if you know my history of running with Crystal, it means something scary in the road LOL   Well, it was a dead racoon we had to dodge!

Miles 9-10:  Headed through a heavily spectator lined area.  Lots of cowbell, cheering, and signs!!  At this point, I saw "Rock It Like This Hurricane".  Set the Scorpions song into my head for a good while!  LOL

Miles 11-15:  We got behind this group of runners, which was timely because around mile 12, my feet started to hurt.  "Embrace the Suck"   LOL   Running this section of the course was cool because there were signs on the side everywhere!  So we did a lot of reading and running.   I almost lost Crystal through one of the water stops, but luckily didn't!  



We followed "Embrace the Suck" around miles 12-15 through Hains Point.

Miles 16-18:  This section was around the Mall in DC.  Great sites to see, lots of spectators, etc!  Definitely was a great section to run.  We ended up running with the color guard flags for awhile too.  And we kept saying "only a couple more miles to our "party""!!



Somewhere between Mile 15-18.

Miles 19-20:  As much as we were getting tired, we knew we had an awesome support group waiting for us at Mile 20.  Our #1 Cheerleader, Tonya, was there with the Mile 20 group!  Crystal almost took her down with a huge hug when she saw her.  I did the same LOL   Then a quick picture, grabbed some snacks, and that was the BEST ice cold water bottle ever!!   This stop gave us the energy we needed to make it to "Beat the Bridge"!!

Our #1 Cheerleader at Mile 20

Mile 20 !!

Stay tuned for our finish......Part 3 coming up!!

Marine Corps Marathon 2012 - Part 1 - The Start

I really don't even know where to start with Marine Corps Weekend!  All the emotions, the highs, the lows, the friends, the Marines, the spectators, the Mile 20 group, etc.!  So I'm going to do this post in sections.  This will be Part 1.......

We were monitoring the weather constantly.  Hurricane Sandy was looking to make this a very difficult race, but what's a little rain and wind, right ??  :/ 

The morning of the MCM started with a 4:15am wake-up call at the hotel.  Although, it didn't matter, I saw the clock almost every hour with race anxiety/excitement!!  Grabbed some breakfast, then got dressed and ready.  My friends and I headed down and put the bags in the car (that valet took FOREVER)!!  Once we finally had that dealt with, we headed to the Metro!  At least that was uneventful, except for seeing a prostitute broker a deal, and then have a black cat cross our paths LOL!!  Washington D.C. at 5:30am !!

Our view walking to Runners Village!

Met up with a lot of other MCM runners along the Metro and headed to the Runners Village at the start.  Probably about a mile walk to get there.  Found the UPS bag drop, and we were all set!!  We made it there by 6:30 to meet up with the awesome RFRC group.  The RFRC group was created to support first-time Marathoners, and I was so happy to have found them during my months of training! We met, we huddled, we prayed, and we cheered!!   OOOOORAH!!!  


UPS Bag Drop!

RFRC Huddle!

RFRC!

Off to the Start line now!  Had to head up that way to use our special "VIP Potty" priviledges.  This was a perk to spending too much money at the Brooks store during the Expo.  I had to have my MCM Finisher jackets, so my credit card melted that day ;)   These were "porta potties on trucks", but they had running water and flushed!  And I can't forget the VIP Potty Butler handing out mints!!   So this was a much better potty experience for race !  Definitely worth it! 

VIP Potty !

VIP Potty Butler - this guy was great!

Now we're moving to the START line!

I had to stop and get a picture with the Marines!!

We headed into our corral.  We chose the 4:30 projected finish, just hoping we'd get settled into a nice pace right from the start (eventhough our goal was to #1 - FINISH, #2 - Rock it under 5 hours)!  

Almost ready to go!!

 

Once the National Anthem was played and the Osprey military choppers flew over, I really got a big punch of nerves in the gut!  I had to completely just take a deep breath and tell myself "you've trained for this, you've got it"!!  Not sure I believed myself though LOL

The race began with the National Anthem, and then two Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 22 MV-22B Ospreys flying from the Pentagon over the starting line!!

They fired the Howitzer and we were off!!   It took us 10 minutes to get to the actual start line from our corral !!

And we're OFF................

 Stay tuned for Part 2 !!