Rock n Roll VA Beach Half Marathon

My brother n law "T" & I signed up to run this as a relay team. We flipped a coin and lucky me I ended up with the longest leg 7.9 miles. This was my first race that was not a 5k so I was excited & nervous all at the same time. I knew I could run most all of it because I did a lot of training over the summer in preparation for my first half marathon the next month. I was hoping that the plantar fasciitis that I had been dealing with for a few weeks would not flare up & ruin my run.

On Friday evening, the hubs and I made the drive down to Virginia Beach. Luckily his sister lives there, so not having to pay for a hotel was nice.

Saturday afternoon everyone wanted to go to the expo, so we all packed into his sisters minivan and we went over to the Virginia Beach Convention Center. We collected our packet which included a drawstring bag, bib & Dtag timer, a New Balance tech shirt & a wooden drumstick which would be our relay baton. The expo was nice & big with lots of vendors and free samples. We had fun at the picture booth, we put on these funky wig's and had our picture taken.

I got up at 5am Sunday morning. I made a cup of coffee & had a toasted bagel with peanut butter & a sliced banana on top. We were out the door by 5:45. We got to the start location next to the convention center and it was totally congested, luckily I did not drive otherwise we would have been driving in circles looking for parking. T lives in the area and knew to go to the library to park. It had plenty of parking spaces and it was only a couple blocks away.
We walked to the start & found our corrals and wished each other good luck.

I was surprised at how crowded the corral was with 45 min remaining until the start. It seemed like as soon as I got situated in the corral, the gun went off & we were running.

The first 3-4 miles were great. We started at the convention center and ran toward the oceanfront & down Atlantic Avenue. There were a lot of people lined on both sides of the street cheering & it seemed like a band was playing every 1/2 mile. Ok maybe not that frequent but it sure seemed that way. It was very energetic & I was enjoying the run while maintaining a decent pace. When I got halfway up the Rudee Inlet bridge, that is when the rest of my race seemed to be a struggle. The mental battle began once I saw other runners walking up the bridge. I fought more with my self mentally than physically. I knew my body could have kept the pace but my mind wanted to give up. Did I mention that it was insanely muggy & air temp was 77° with 85% humidity??


starting up the Rudee Inlet Bridge

I got to mile 6 and had use the port a john, I ignored the first 2 opportunities & couldn't take it any longer so I had to stop. It took quite a bit of time wrestling with my clothes but eventually I got out and back on the course to resume my run. The last 2 miles seemed LONG. We were running though Camp Pendleton and it was rather boring. We had lovely views of barracks & trailers with no crowd support or bands. At least it was shady & not in the direct sun. With only 2 miles left I just stuck to a slower pace. I finally got to mile 8 & handed off the guitar stick to T & off he went.

 

love the guy in green- his expression had me laughing

 

 

At the relay transition area they had a medical tent & another table where volunteers were handing out Gatorade, fruit & Powerbar's. We (relay runners) were directed to a line of busses that would drive us to the finish line to meet up with our other teammate.

We were dropped off at the oceanfront near the finish line & the finish area was somewhat ridiculous. A few of us tried to get in the finish area on the boardwalk but were told we were not allowed. We tried to explain that we were on a relay team but they still wouldn't let us in. Trying to find T was crazy! I ended up walking toward the beer tent. I enjoyed my free beer on the beach & after a few minutes I got a text from T that he had finished. We finally met up and headed home.