#ThrowbackThursday // Half Marathon Mania

So I'm back after a well-deserved spring break...slash extended blogging hiatus if we're using technical terms here.  As soon as classes ended and spring break was in my grasp, I stayed around a bit to run a half marathon before heading home and successfully avoiding the [one and only] massive DC snowstorm of the season.  Throw in a time change, starting a new show on Amazon Prime (hi Downton Abbey...just a few years too late lol), and another midterm right when I got back to DC, everything just kind of took an aside.  But now, here I am in the library on a particularly gloomy & cold Thursday during my 3-hour break, and since I have no work to do before my last 2 classes of the day, I thought I'd catch up on blogging!

So, like I said, I stayed back a few days after spring break started to run my 5th half marathon - the DC Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon!  It snowed & rained the day of the expo, which caused a massive cold front to come our way (not complaining), but it also confused me a bit because "spring break" didn't quite seem to fit with the feel of the atmosphere.  The expo itself was great - it was in Southeast DC at the Armory and had tons of booths with different vendors and sponsors and free things (my favorite!).  I got 2 shirts and a birthday present for my dad after I picked up my race number & successfully got bumped up 5 corrals to an earlier & faster group!  That night I joined some of my family members for dinner, where they successfully helped me carbo-load to the best they could.

The race itself was a blast but freezing.  I normally hate running in leggings, but it was about 10 degrees colder than my (already below normal) temperature threshold, so I decided to oblige.  Just to be safe at the end, I used bag check for the first time to check myself a fleece jacket and thicker gloves for the ride home (which ended up being a great decision on my part).  The race started in downtown just next to the American History Museum and ran past a bunch of the monuments and Kennedy Center before spitting us back onto Rock Creek Parkway for a couple of miles before a MASSIVE & super steep hill that I was convinced would be the death of me.  Big shoutout here to my aunt & uncle who waited for me at the hill and cheered me on as I ran up it; luckily much of the rest of the course was flat or downhill through a bunch of different neighborhoods that eventually ended back at the Armory where the expo was held.  There were all sorts of music groups & cheerleading squads out on the course, as well as locals who set up cheering spots in their driveways.  Now for the fun part...

I RAN A NEW PERSONAL RECORD - 1:57:56!!!  The funniest thing about that is that I didn't even know until like 5-10 minutes after I had finished.  Because the race included a marathon and the starts were separated by corrals going at different times, I had no clue what pace I was running (I opted to not use my phone tracker because I once did during a race and it threw me off).  So naturally when I finished and the clock said 2:02:42, I was a little bummed because I thought that I had trained harder and better than my race in November when I ran a 2:01:41.  Then, all of a sudden after getting my medal and grabbing a drink from the coolers, my phone started going off like no other.  I checked it only to find that my uncle had started a group chat with my whole family - they had been tracking me during the race through the runner tracking service and found out my time before I could even guess what mine was.  It was so exciting to get that celebration, even if it meant that I [the runner] was the last person to find out!  I then quickly made my way to the gear check area, where I threw on my big fleece sweatshirt and started walking in the sun as much as I could until I went to the Geico tent to ring their PR Bell!  I don't think the picture does an accurate job showing how cold it is, but boy was I feeling it (the cold & excitement).

Getting home was a nightmare, only because there was one main metro stop serving that area of town and thousands of people were in a hurry to get out of the cold.  Luckily the trains waited until they were as full as possible and I got home in no time.  I spent the duration of the day eating everything in my kitchen and relaxing in between laundry & packing for my trip home the next day.  I will be running my final race of the season this Sunday at the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Miler here in DC as part of the Cherry Blossom Festival festivities before taking some well-deserved time off before summer conditioning begins.  Stick around for another FriYAY post coming your way tomorrow!