A few weeks ago I talked about my fear of commitment,
especially when it comes to races. It is pretty much impossible to fail when
you don’t even try. Well, I officially sucked it up and registered for the
Richmond Half Marathon and the Walt Disney World Marathon. I knew that if I
didn’t register soon, the races would fill up and I would be pretty mad about
putting in all the training miles and not being able to run the race.
The Richmond Half Marathon was this past Saturday, and I
tried to view it as just another training run. It didn’t really fit into my
marathon training program, but my husband wanted to run it and I figured it
would be a great way to see parts of Richmond that I had not explored yet.
Overall, it was a good time, and I had a far better run than I was expecting
and finished in just under 2:40. Now I understand that there are people who
wouldn’t even consider this running, but it was a huge accomplishment for me. I
finished almost 19 minutes faster than my previous half-marathon time. It also
makes me feel a little more comfortable with running the full marathon in
January.
Overall, the Richmond half marathon is a good race. It is
sponsored by McDonalds, which makes me giggle. The course is nice with just a few hills and
some great sights. You also have people cheering you on over most of the
course. Some people even set up their own aid stations. There was even one with
beer between miles 9 and 10. I like beer and I like running, but not at the
same time.
Another interesting thing about this race is that they run
both the half and the full marathon on the same day, and we were able to see
the start of the full marathon before the course splits. The course comes back
together at the end with a wide lane for those running the half and one for
those running the full. Since I am slow, this meant that I saw the elite
marathoners run past me again a couple miles before the finish line.
BTW...it seems like I cannot take a decent race photo.
