What a beautiful morning for a half marathon! If you enjoy race details, then read on… if not just plough through the photos.
My friend Laura was running the full 26.2-mi marathon, and I was only running the 13.1-mi half marathon. Laura started her full at 6am, and I started my half marathon at 7:30am. We trained some together (no I didn’t go with her on her 23-mi solo training run, eek!) and I knew well from my own full marathon back in 2009 that the last few miles of a full are tough. “I want to quit” tough. So I decided that I’d run my first “half” 6 miles solo, then basically wait near her mile 19 (which was very close to my mile 6) so we could run our last 7 miles back to the finish line together. So I ran just under 15 miles total (a little over a half marathon)… not 26.2 like Laura. Make sense?
Carlsbad was the perfect course for our grand scheme.
Here’s Laura the day before the race, bib pick-up day:
Race day morning sky:
Laura was long gone by the time I arrived at the race start (since she started at 6am), so it was so nice to see my friend Jennifer there!
And can I say I love her black eye! She got it playing baseball with her son. It’s a “motherly love” badge of honor.
I’m usually never alone at races… I’m usually there with Alisa, but with a strained IT band, she needed to take a breather on this one. Next time Sacker!
The energy at a start line is like nothing else.
Electric.
What a beautiful course. It’s tough, but someone has to live here!
This was the first race I carried my little point-and-shoot camera on, and it was so much fun to capture the course and the people. My camera fit nicely inside my running belt, with my cell phone and gu’s. (Hmm what is the plural of “gu”?)
This cute fan club showed up at 6 miles. These cheer leaders are the best.
It was at this point that I busted off the half-marathon course and ran “upstream” on the full marathon course (south on the PCH from Breakwater), looking for lovely Laura.
And then I saw her… yeah!
Laura’s hubs (and their 3 kids) followed her around the course all morning cheering her on. So, so sweet! Here Laura’s waving to them top of the bridge overpass holding the white sign:
Blurry photos… it’s hard to snap clear photos while running!
Laura’s good family friend joined her for one of the last miles.
Mile 26, baby (blue sign on left)! Laura kicked in the after burners and was on.fire.fast for the last 1-2 miles:
I was so impressed… I honestly thought she was going to lose me! I had a hard time keeping up and I had only run 14 miles compared to her 26! Sheesh.
Out of breath paparazzi Me: “Must…. keep up…. to take…. photos…. at … finish.”
The home stretch…
Success! Introducing… Laura, the Marathoner! So proud of you!
Congratulations sweet lady!
(With a silly flower hat like that you might think twice about being my running partner.)
Such a wonderful day with the perfect happy ending.
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