Women’s Half Marathon Recap

Good morning!

It’s Monday. Judah was up bright and early at 5:15 am to help start off the week. What a great guy.

So yesterday I ran the Women’s Half Marathon in San Diego. It kind of snuck up on me like all races do. Shocker.

The pre race eats were the same. Homemade vegetarian pizza.

I even made STUFT Daddy one too. He didn’t have to go to the race, but he had to fuel up for work. Ha.

You’d think I’d learn to not have spicy food the night before races, but well, I just don’t. My pizza was covered in crushed red pepper, Cholula and nutritional yeast and I had some roasted brussel sprouts on the side.

Dumb.

I had a 4:20 am alarm set. I was told not to wake STUFT Daddy up when I left. I didn’t. I didn’t make him a coffee though either. Ha. I did spend a little time trying to figure out if I was going to need my Mizuno arm sleeves or not (I didn’t).

Luckily there was no traffic as I was running late as usual and trying to eat my banana, Coach’s Oats, chia and PB2 mix in the car. Just not smart. Either is trying to take a picture.

Everything was pretty low key. Parking was easy and the port a potty lines were short. I got to the start line just in time.

Wearing only my finest sweatshirt from my college days.

It wasn’t very crowded so it made finding this pretty lady easy.

The race started at 6:30 am.

It took me the first mile or so to get situated and fumble around with my phone, sports headphones, gloves, etc.

The course was quiet. It was along the water for the most part, but there were a lot of parking lot loops. It was flat though which was nice and since we kept looping around I got to see everyone again and again on the course. That was fun. I saw this gal a couple of times. She got a PR yesterday.

The last couple miles weren’t that great. I guess they never are though. I just felt heavy after mile 10 and my mind started to wander. I was thinking of sushi of all things. Weird. I had to keep reminding myself to just keep my legs moving and finish this thing.

And then, well, it was over.

The finish was quiet. There weren’t that many runners around yet.

Luckily there were a lot of volunteers around just waiting for me to ask them to take my picture.

My race outfit (in case you care):

Mizuno Elixir 8s, Pro Compression socks of the month, Lululemon run speed shorts, Handful adjustable bra, Lorna Jane tank, Halo visor and BIC Bands headband.

Oh yeah, I wore my Mizuno gloves too. Not just one, but both. I was just trying to be cool like MJ after the race.

I also tried to be cool with new fashion statement thing.

I made the mistake at last weekend’s race to not wear my visor with the special sweat proof seal, and man, I won’t do that again. Once you try the Halo seal, you never go back. He he.

I wore my new Oculus sunglasses too and loved them. They stayed put, were confortable and didn’t fog up at all. Pretty awesome, especially for such a great price. So glad I got distracted at the expo and bought these. Best $20 ever spent. Ha.

It was my first time racing with my Garmin 10 too. I felt pretty cool about it.

I knew I finished within the top ten, but results weren’t posted until last night. I ended up getting 6th overall out of 1700 and 2nd in my age group.

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My amazing friend finished up at the front too AND she had run a marathon just the day before. Yeah, she’s my hero.

We share a love for a lot of the same things: compression socks, Mizuno shoes, BIC Bands and coffee.

Oh, and discount “shopping”.

Since the finish line wasn’t crowded and there were a ton of yummy goodies around, we decided to stock up.

Yeah, we know how it’s done. When you pay the registration fee, you better get your money’s worth, right?

Getting my groceries to the car was a bit of challenge though.

But I realized just one more reason I love my Handful bra.

Ha ha.

We met up with KJ outside the Cookie Café. Yeah, they had a Cookie Café. How cool, huh?

After a little hang out time, Sarah and I went for a little 5 mile jog to get a few more miles in for the day. I wish we could run together more often.

After heading out it was time to sport my Sunday finest

to church

and pick up these cute guys.

Totally appropriate church attire, right?

Random, but I loved this tree in the church parking lot.

Back at the home front, the boys weren’t very helpful with unpacking the “groceries”.

(I know, we made out didn’t we?)

More than one of these may have been consumed while checking out the goods.

The boys had better things to do.

At least Pat was impressed with all my goodies.

Oh, I almost forgot, in addition to all the fun food at the end, the finisher’s medal was pretty darn cool too.

Talk about some bling. You can even take the little charm out and put it on a different necklace.

I just might have to do that.

My stylish post race recovery outfit definitely could have definitely used some bling.

Okay, well, that’s a wrap. Another half marathon in the books. I’ve got another one just two weeks away and some other big race news, but I’ll save it for later.

Have a great day!