Race Recap: Athens Half Marathon

It's getting chilly out there y'all! I'm snuggled in bed taking my first sips of coffee and realized we owe you a race report. October could quite possibly put me in the grave. Our weekends have been off the chain crazy with birthday parties and other things. Well, the only kid birthday party Single Gal attended was #1's, but she has had many social responsibilities as well. The month is not even over yet either.

At the Arch after Packet Pick-Up

As we got closer to the actual day of the race and reviewed some of our training run times, I basically resigned myself to a 2:20-ish finish time. It's not that our training was bad but our times seemed a bit slow for our high hopes of running 2:10. We came to the conclusion that this would just be a fun race and we were happy to be lining up at the start together (and 3 weeks shy of the twins first birthday was a big plus for me). So we joked about our 13 mile "fun run," drank an alcoholic beverage the night before and coffee on the way to the race since we had to get up super early to drive out to Athens. Also note, I bought us matching tank tops on clearance from Target since it had not been terribly cold the last few weeks. We were a bit cold waiting for the race to start but shed our arm warmers quickly.

We started out pretty fast of the first mile, which I knew we would so not a huge deal. We both felt good and I tried to dial us back on our pace but we kept hitting times a good bit faster than our normal pace. The course is hilly at times but has some lengthy down hills, which is where we planned to make up some ground. I was very worried we would "bonk" or hit the wall somewhere around mile 10. We did make the call to stop for a bathroom break around 4.5 miles. There were two port-o-potties but it did not go as quick as we had hoped. Whatever, it's a "fun run". Single Gal was having some side cramping pretty much the entire race but she was gutting it out despite that. I was feeling awesome. We race together, but the deal is, if we need to separate we separate, see you at the finish line or in between. We also keep to a no talking rule, which you would never believe if you ran with us on Saturday mornings. Single Gal kept telling me to go on but I wasn't sure I was ready. We split before the bus barn around 8 miles. Time was looking good for me. I felt great and decided I would just go and worry about bonking when it happened. Never happened. I tried to pull out that 2:10 but just missed it with a 2:11 something. It was the first race I actually felt like I was racing. That I was really going for it and giving it everything I had. Single Gal cruised in at 2:16-ish, still a good race for her.

This was a well supported race and even though the temps were cold, decent spectator support. I really enjoyed their funny signs! " You're running better than the government." I'm really enjoying the half distance right now and while I do think if will run another marathon I don't think it will be in 2014. I do think Single Gal and I will be ready for redemption from Las Vegas 2011 by 2015 though.

XOXO
The Housewife