Boston Half Marathon Weekend

This past weekend we headed home for the Boston Half Marathon.  We left on Saturday pretty early in the morning because His Highness had a vet appointment at 9 AM.  Claudius had a trial day of daycare this week, so we had to get his kennel cough vaccination updated.  After that we dropped him at daycare for the weekend where he got to see his favorite person who's not us. :)

I spent most of Saturday doing laundry, and then we went out to dinner with my parents, which was a lot of fun.  After that, we met up with some of our friends at The Cheesecake Factory to get some dessert.  Because The Cheesecake Factory is all too cool for school and doesn't take reservations, we had to wait for an hour, but we had a lot of fun!  I pigged out and had two desserts (ice cream sundae and lemoncello torte or something like that), and they were totally delicious!

Jaimie and Avi (above) and Sean (below) met up with us, and we had a nice time just chatting and catching up.

Here's Marek and I.  Marek left his leftover cheesecake in my parents' refrigerator, and he was so sad when he remembered it, as we were already about 45 minutes away from them.  Oh well - there's a good reason to go back then!  I am actually not really a big fan of cheesecake, but I will go back for cakes and ice cream any time. :)

Sunday morning we got up early to head into Boston for the Half.  Marek dropped me off at the starting area, and then went and met up with our other friend who came down to watch the race too.  After he dropped me off, I joined all the other runners in the lines for the port-a-potties (gross), and then just wandered around.  I was looking for a friend from high school, as she was running the race, too, and wasn't able to find her, so headed over to the start corrals.  As I was trying to decide which corral to get into, I ran right into her, so we got to chat and catch up.

She was much faster than I am, so when we started, I was on my own (I like it better that way, I think), and everyone was passing me.  This was my third half marathon, and I've noticed that people LOVE to go out fast at the beginning, and I have learned not to pay attention to ALL the people passing me at the start, because I'd rather pace myself and finish without feeling like dying than whiz past people at the beginning.  It was a little while before I started passing people, but I found a girl going at a decent pace that I used to sort of mark myself against.  I tried to stay close to her, and we kept trading off who was ahead or behind (unbeknownst to her), but I finally passed her after 4 or 5 miles, and then I was on my own.

They were not lying when they said the course was a "rolling" course.  The half marathon in Indianapolis is pretty flat, and this one wasn't.  The hills weren't too bad, except for the big one at mile 11.5 or so, which is really one of the least awesome places for a steep hill in a half marathon.  It was tough (I actually stopped and walked for about a minute just to get to the top), but the best part is that it wasn't even the last hill!  They really made you work for your finish.

My goal was simple: get my medal!  The Boston Half requirements for "finishers" are pretty strict.  You have to complete the marathon in 2.5 hours, and if you don't start right at the gun time, then you have even less time to be an official finisher.  The course opened at 8:30 and was closed promptly at 11, so if you weren't done by 11, you weren't considered an official finisher, and didn't get a medal!  (At least not according to the website.)  Based on the runs I had been doing, I was fairly certain I could finish in 2.5 hours (our time in Indy was 2:29), so my private goal was to finish in 2:20, cutting about 9 minutes off my time.  I wanted to finish at a sub-11 minute per mile pace, and I did!  My official time was 2:19 and some change, and my pace was 10:40.  I am so excited (and I got my medal, woo hoo!!).

Here I am enjoying a post-run banana, wearing my pretty medal (take note, Indiana - the Boston Half medal is much prettier than yours!).

Here's Marek and I after the race.  He and our friend met me in the post-race area after, and he took a couple pictures of me running, too.

After the half marathon, we headed back to my parents house and I finished our laundry.  Then we headed out to visit with my cousins.  We went to Red Robin for dinner, and had a ton of fun! I LOVE Red Robin, and I totally pigged out - raspberry limeade, burger, tons of garlic fries (YUMMMM), onion rings, nachos, and chili queso dip.  SO GOOD.  I'm not kidding when I say that my Red Robin meal helped push me forward when I was running.

My cousins have a young son, and it's always fun to see him.  We have been hanging out with them a lot more in recent years, and it's been really nice getting to spend time with so much family.  I can't wait to hang out (and maybe go to Red Robin :)) again!

After dinner we headed back home, and I'm already trying to decide if I want to do another half marathon between now and Indy next May.  I looked up some half marathons in January, but right now I am leaning towards the half marathon in Hyannis at the end of February, but I'm worried that two months won't be long enough in between halfs.  I know there are plenty of hardcore runners out there who could do that, but I'm not sure if I'm there yet.  But as of now, that's what I'm thinking, because there is a lot of travel involved for the other potential halfs (West Virginia, Charleston, or St. Louis).  Decisions, decisions...but the bottom line is I finished the Boston Half in the time I wanted, and that'll be enough to motivate me in my training for now.