We Run DC - Nike Women Half Marathon

Way back in November, I entered my name in the lottery for the Inaugural Nike Women Half Marathon in Washington DC.  I had no idea if my name would be picked from the thousands of entries, but the thought of a Tiffany Finisher's Necklace was enough of an incentive to give it a try! The running gods were smiling on me and I got in and my two running friends (one is a fellow princess) got in too!  The only thing left after the lottery was to wait until April!

About two weeks before we left on our Nike adventure, my Moms Run This Town club presented me the honor of wearing our travelling skirt for the weekend.  (You can see it up in that picture up there....isn't it cute???)  It's a Sweet Spot running skirt.  The amazing thing about this skirt is that it will fit everyone in the club.  Yep, you read that right.  It fits the little tiny fast girls AND it fits the regular sized slow me....with snaps to spare.  The awesomeness of those wonderful ladies is wrapped up in that skirt and it goes around with different people to different races.  I hoped to do it proud.

We left our house bright and early (like, early by the clock and early by the time we had hoped to leave....this, by itself, was an amazing feat) on Friday morning and headed up to DC.  Our plan was to make it to Georgetown for the Expo by lunchtime.  Packet pick up on Friday was SO easy.  (RunDisney...take some notes.)  We walked through a tent that could accommodate a really long line if necessary and walked right up to a lady holding a sign.  She directed us to another lady at a computer.  The computer lady scanned my confirmation email and all of my contact information popped up on the screen in front of me.  I verified the info while she checked my ID.  Then she scanned a race bib, handed me a bright green bag full of stuff (race map, some free samples, a card with a number on it that would do something at the Expotique) and we were on our way.  The entire process took 2 minutes.  Now, my only complaint about this process is that my name was not on my bib.  They volunteers had stacks of bibs and you just got what you got.  In fact, my friend who checked in about 35 minutes after I did, had a bib that was 3000 numbers less than mine.  It was quick and it was efficient, but I sort of like having a bib with my name on it.

After a quick lunch, we met up with the other girls and made our way to the Expotique.  I am not sure what I was expecting, but this Expo was different.  It was in a HUGE tent on the Georgetown waterfront.  All of these awesome signs were on the outside of the tent, so of course I stopped.  An enthusiastic volunteer with a great sign jumped in one of my pictures.

After the photo stop, we headed into the tent.  Luckily, it wasn't (too) crowded, so they let our stroller go in.  I am not sure that would have happened on Saturday, when the word on the street is that the place was PACKED.  This Expotique was like a portable Nike convention.  There was nothing for sale...it was just a demonstration of how awesome Nike is.  There was a place to get your makeup or hair consulted by some of the other sponsors.  There was a place to try Nuun, since that is what they served on the course.  There were Luna Bars (also on the course) and a place to make signs.  Shoe people would watch you run and tell you what kind of Nike shoes would be best for you.  You could look at how to use Nike+ for your training.  There were walls of shoes to look at.  On each wall of shoes, there was a key pad.  Remember that card with the code on it in the bag?  We went to each of 3 walls to enter the code.  Sometimes a code would open a door with a key.  The key would open a door to some shoes.  I wasn't that lucky.  No free shoes for me.  We didn't stay too long at the Expotique....all of the shopping was at the Nike Georgetown store.  But, there were some neat pictures to be taken before we left.

See my children over there on the left....they almost photobombed the people that took pictures after us.

The race route

From the Expo, we walked up the street to Nike Georgetown.  Right outside the door, there was a long wall with all of the runners' names on it.  I found mine (and Jacob found his.)

When we got inside the store, it was SO CROWDED!  I sent the wonderful husband to get in the CRAZY LONG checkout line while I picked out my shirts and got fitted for THESE BABIES:

Photo credit to Elizabeth Westman

Yep, those are exactly what you think they are.  They are Tiffany blue Nike 5.0 shoes.  They are dated on the tongue.  Those are ribbon laces.  (Don't worry...they came with real laces..but I am NOT running in these shoes.  These are shoes for looking cute.)  

Saturday was a day at the Smithsonian.  I'll write all about that in a different post.

Sunday morning came early.  I got dressed in my Audrey Hepburn, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" inspired outfit and was ready to go.  (I got lots of compliments on our pearls throughout the morning!)  We met in the hotel lobby at a little before 6.  We took a cab to the start, which was about a mile away from the hotel.  The cabbie dropped us off and we made our way to meet some people from our Princess Half Marathon facebook group.  We found one of the girls, but we didn't meet up with any of the others.  I popped over to take a picture of the starting line.  It wasn't the best picture, but the Capitol is right behind the gates.  It was an amazing view to start the day!

We jumped in the massive porta potty line (breaking the "go early" rule).  I saw a former church choir friend  in the port potty line.  This was her 1st half marathon and it was SO nice to run into her in that sea of people.  We got through the line and made it to our starting corral with about 5 minutes to spare.  One of the girls I was running with was starting in the last corral, so we decided to start with her.  The start was corralled, but there was no time between corral starts.  We went from the back of 15,000 people to the start line in about 8 minutes. 

After we crossed the starting line, we went through 13.1 miles of Washington, DC streets.  This was one of the most beautiful race courses that I have run.  We started with the Capitol in front of us then we headed toward a tunnel.  It was pretty cool to run through the tunnel.  There were drummers at the beginning and end.  They had cool blinking lights.  When we came up through the tunnel, we were met with signs and spectators. There was a lot of bobbing and weaving to get around groups of people and slower people.  Luckily, the course was wide enough for it to be okay.   As we headed toward the Lincoln Memorial, there were even more spectators.  Nike had a Chinese drumming group, complete with a dragon.  This is also where I saw my family for the first time.  My boys has made signs and were there to cheer me on!

The best cheerleaders EVER!

The course went over the Arlington Memorial Bridge into Arlington.  My friend, Elizabeth, was having a hard time with the pace and told me to go ahead.  The 3:00 pacer had just passed us and I was bound and determined to finish in under 3 hours.  For the 1/2 mile or so that we were in Arlington, I was chasing Andrew, the pacer.   My other friend, Jen, and I caught him and passed him and we never saw him again (but you KNOW I was looking over my shoulder for a couple of miles to make sure that he wasn't on my heels.)  We went back over the bridge, saw our families again, and went toward the Kennedy Center.  We passed a group of Brazilian Drummers and they were ALL WOMEN.  It was pretty cool.  We saw Elizabeth and saw our families for the last time for about 7 miles.  After the Kennedy Center, we went out on a little peninsula and around a golf course.  We passed the 10K mats and the signs warning of the pace requirement.  (It was the hard cut off....any runner that passed that point after 9:00 was subject to getting picked up and driven to the finish.)  I passed the first sign WELL before 9.  At about mile 7, Jen thought she could speed up and PR at sub-2:45.  I didn't think that I could pick up 2 minutes a mile to hang with her, so she took off and I just kept going.  This was a LONG 4 miles around the golf course.  It was hard to get to, so there were not many spectators.  Nike did a good job with staging water stops, scream teams, and motivational signs to get us through this part.  Before long, I was at Mile 10 and on my way through the tunnel again and up the hill (flat course...HA!  They took a page from Disney and put all of the elevation at mile 10!) back into the city.  I knew that as soon as I got through the tunnel and up the hill, I would see my family again at mile 11.  There were SO many spectators from about 10 to the finish.  Here's what it looked like when I saw MY cheer squad.

Mile 11 took me back toward the Capitol.  What a beautiful sight!  Just about then, I realized that I would be able to beat 3 hours.  I knew that I just had to keep going.  Then it was up Pennsylvania Avenue to the finish.  I saw my family one more time just before the finish line.  They had been joined by our wonderful Navy friends who had metroed into the city to see me at the finish!  When I saw them, I knew that my Tiffany necklace (and my PR) was on a little further up!  I crossed the finish line in 2:55:25....15 minutes faster than the Shamrock Half and 5 minutes under my goal.    I got across the finish line, got my water and then headed for the bling.  There were volunteers with scanners who scanned my bib before I could get that little blue box.  As soon as I was scanned, I walked up a little way and saw this:

Yeah, he's a cutie...but look at that BOX!

As I moved through the finisher area, I grabbed a banana, my heat blanket (my first ever!) and my Tiffany bag (they also had more Luna bars and some fruit cups) and got in line to get my shirt.  So, apparently most runners are regular sized with tiny feet...judging by lines and what the sold out shoes this weekend.  The line for the x-small, small, and medium finisher shirts was NON EXISTENT.  The large and bigger line was pretty long, but it moved pretty fast.  I was talking to a girl in line who ran in San Francisco and she said the shirts run small and recommended that I get a size bigger, so I did.  After I did that, I considered checking out the finisher merchandise, but we had to check out of the hotel by noon and it was an hour wait to get into the tent.  I had my shirt and my shoes and I didn't need a pen or key chain or coozie, so I figured I wasn't missing much.   I walked back to my family and watched Elizabeth finish.  I found Jen, who met her goal and beat her old PR.  We said good bye to all of our friends and walked back to the hotel so I could shower before our 3 1/2 hour drive home. 

The Nike Women Marathon in DC was an amazing race.  It was a beautiful course - full of girl power - through one of the most amazing cities in our country.  Packet pick up was well organized and Nike had a lot of great merchandise for the weekend. The Expo was not so "expo-y" as much at is was Nike-y, but that's okay.  I brought everything that I needed - KT Tape, GU chomps - and I wasn't in the market for new running stuff anyway.   I would have liked my name on my bib, but if that's the worst thing about the weekend, then I'll take it.  

Goods from the weekend (except the shirts that I bought.....I didn't think to take a picture of those..)

I am counting the days until next year's race!  This year, I will be able to say that I am a student, so I should have NO problems getting in!

Running for Boston

There was a lot of talk about how to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings on Facebook in the past couple of days.  I know this because I was sick on the couch and got to read every single one.  THe running community wore race t-shirts and took pictures of their running shoes.  They ran 4.09 miles (the time on the clock when the bombs went off) or 2.26 miles (in honor of the 26.2 marathon distance).  They ran alone.  They ran together.  But, I was sick...puking sick....so I couldn't run.  I had to keep changing my race shirt because the baby was throwing up too.  It was pretty miserable.  I couldn't eat for 2 days.

When I finally started to feel a little better, my husband came home a little early.  I took advantage of him being there and the beautiful spring day and I set off to run my 4.09 miles for Boston.  I took a new route.  I went left at the stop light instead of right.  I ran on the grass in the median so I could get to the neighborhood streets.  Those first two miles felt great!  Then, the lack of food and the lack of energy and two days worth of puking caught up to me.  I started to feel AWFUL.  I changed my intervals from 2 minutes of running/ 1 minute of walking to 2 minutes of walking/1 minute of running.  I couldn't believe it.  I waited all week to run for Boston - for the runners who couldn't finish, for the innocent spectators who were injured or killed, for the city of Boston, and for the running community - and then it was hard.  But, I kept going.  I set out to run 4.09 miles for Boston and I was going to do it, even if I had to walk instead of run.

It took me forever to go 4.09 miles, but I went.  I even tried out my outfit for the Nike Women Marathon next week.   Double win with a whole lot of running fails in the middle of it!

Wordless Wednesday

Run Your Ass Off

My friends and I are doing the I <3 to Run April running challenge.  They are calling it April "RUN YOUR ASS OFF" Challenge.  The rules are simple - run a mile every day in April.  If you miss a day, you have to run 3 the next day.  If you miss 2 days, you owe 5.  Seems simple....until it's time to get off the couch.

Today is April 5.  So far, I'm doing okay.

Day 1 - We walked around Busch Gardens all day.  I had to carry the almost 2 year old for most of it.  I'm counting it.

Day 2 - 1 mile with the whole family on their bikes and the dog in tow.

Day 3 - I was sick and didn't get off the couch.

Day 4 - 3.1 miles on the treadmill....with hills as penance (and training, but I'm calling it penance).

Day 5 - 1 mile with my kiddos.

A mile is really pretty easy.  I can run a straight mile.  (I haven't since this challenge started, but I can.)  It takes me longer to get ready to run and get out the door than to actually run the mile.  But, there was a time in my life when I couldn't run a mile.  Now I can....and it's "easy".  In fact, when I don't want to do it, I just remind myself that I will be done and back in my jammies in 15 minutes.  I can do anything for 15 minutes.

And maybe, just maybe, my behind will be a little smaller at the end of April.  I'll let you know!

The one in which I became a BAMR

Sunday was a group run for a virtual race with my MRTT (Moms Run This Town) chapter.  We got together to run the Jelly Bean Virtual Run.  It was a 5K, 10K or Half Marathon.  It was the Sunday after the Shamrock, so I did the 5K.  The ladies that ran the group run on Friday has a cold, but dry morning.  We had rain in our forecast.  It was supposed to start in the early afternoon, so we moved the run from 2pm to 12 noon.

Apparently, 12:00 sharp means "early afternoon."  It was POURING.  Not only that, there was ice in the rain.  ICE...in the rain...in MARCH.

We all gathered under the picnic pavilion and debated heading out for the run or heading back to our cars.  (I am sure that if you have read my blog before, you know where I stand on running in the rain...or the ice, for that matter.)   I was ready to head back to the car and try again another day.  But my running friend Kris said that she was going to brave it....at the park...in the sleet....by herself.  I felt bad having her out there all alone, so I agreed to go with her for at least a lap (1.5 miles).  Another girl and her 6 year old daughter joined us.   We went slow, but we finished our lap.  Then we just went ahead and did another lap to finish our 3.1 miles.  Kris still had 3 more to do, but I just wasn't ready for all of that.

So, we became BAMRs (that's Bad A$$ Mother Runners) that day.  We ran when some others went back to their cars.  We ran through the rain and ice.  We had mud up the backs of our legs from the trail.  And, we did it together.