USAF Half Marathon – 1:51:51

09/19/2009 by Mrs.CJ 11 Comments

It was an early morning for this race. We were up at 3:30am to get ready and head out the door at 5:00am. Plus we are a timezone ahead for us so it definitely felt early. We were easily able to get into the area and parked. The event had instructions to plan to be early for security checkpoints for bag check. Since the events kicked off at 7am, we made sure we would be there early. It was only us on the shuttle bus that we had to take over from the parking area to the event location. Everything was set up next to the USAF Museum. They had all kinds of aircraft parked outside and were lined up to be what we would run between in the finish chute.

We waited around and froze our buts off in the dark, per usual. We had throw away shirts on, but we should brought throw away sweatshirts (ugly race sweatshirts we sometimes get). We were at least distracted by the aircraft and the American Chopper display was there.

Us freezing. The sun is finally coming up.

Throw away shirts off.

The Marathon and 10K ceremony began at 7am with two F-16s flying overhead. They were off at 7:30am. Next it was our turn. There were just under 10,000 runners for all events, about 3900 for the Half Marathon. They did the same opening ceremony for us including the fly by. They pulled up hard directly above the race start. Very sweet touch!

Parachuters.


One of the F-16s.

And we were off! The half marathon start.

The first mile had a nice gradual hill. Then we were out on some flat roads, onto a bike path which meant some squishing in. Followed by some miles next to beautiful homes and a golf course. I felt amazing! Then around mile 8.5 we hit a much steeper hill. I don’t think elevation charts can do a course justice. The remaining miles until the last mile were rolling hills. I felt good and only wished we had a flatter course to finish up on. Made me appreciate the flat courses in Chicago and Champaign, IL that much more.

I have to say that the volunteers were wonderful! And there was more than enough aid stations and facilities. In fact I found myself being selective about when to take water cause it seemed that we had one every 1.5 miles. It was nice to have options throughout the course.

Rob was ahead of me throughout the race. I could see him ahead until about 6 miles and then he was off beyond my view. I was so happy that he was feeling good too and having a good race.

Enjoying the race:

The last mile wrapped around the USAF Museum area and then the awesome finish through all the various aircraft.

Me coming into the finish.

I got a PR! 1:51:51
Rob also PRed! 1:49:28

Us with our medals.

Our medals are awesome! We also received a runner’s towel and space blanket.
Me and my medal:

Professional picture of the medals:

Front of the medal:

Back of the medal:

Runner’s Towel:

We headed back and got cleaned up and went back to tour the USAF Museum.
The very cool finish line:

Us at the museum:

At the museum I found a good copilot hat for our plane:

Afterward got dinner at Red Lobster. We had originally planned to have a dinner at a local restaurant, but it turned out the place we had planned was a wine bar and didn’t have a dinner menu.

Stats:
1:51:51
8:33 pace
F 30-34: 26/310
F: 168/1912
Overall: 764/3843