Women’s Running Magazine Half Marathon Race Recap Part 2: Before the Start

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:  Women’s Running Magazine Half Marathon Race Recap Part 1: Traveling and The Expo

 

Ok, so I know I said in the last post that this would be “Part 2: The Race” BUT, I changed my mind 1) because I’ve picked up a few extra hours at work, 2) I chose to watch my evening of Thursday night TV instead of write up my race report, and 3) now I’m tired!

BUT I did promise you that I would take a picture of the “Ultimate Goodie Bag” so here it is:

The bag came with the pink shirt and a few samples… I bought the jacket and sweaty band.

So, I got up around 4:30am on Saturday Morning (September 25th) and stayed up… shut off my alarm since it wasn’t supposed to go off til 4:50am, and got ready.  I ate 1/4 of a bagel with peanut butter and drank lots and LOTS of water!  I made sure I had everything and we were out the door by 5:30… except I didn’t have everything! We had to go back up to our floor of the hotel because I completely forgot my Nike+ sensor that was in my old pair of shoes (since i was wearing my new pair).  I had no idea if they’d have every mile marked or not… remember its my first half!  Then we were out the door and on our way!

I can’t really remember if I was quiet or talkative on the way there because I was really nervous… maybe I was both… but I was never so grateful to have my parents there with me because I had no clue what I was getting myself into!

We found a parking spot but they had “special event parking” for $15 instead of the $7 the website had told us but we paid the fee and walked around the corner to the start area… we got there pretty early and there weren’t any crowds so I took the opportunity to use the porta pot even though I knew I would have to go again before the start of the race.

The start/finish line was right in front of the Country Music Hall of fame and I thought it was cool how the windows were like the keys of a piano!

I decided to take a video to kind of introduce myself to you all a bit…  a couple of you have asked me how to pronounce my name this week…

it’s Zuh-net(like a basketball net)-uh … I say it in the video:

Ok then… can you tell I’m really REALLY really nervous?! (and tired) lol  Also, I lied in the video!  I didn’t mean to…I was so emotional and excited and happy and not even thinking about you guys at the finish… sorry, but its the truth… so I didn’t get another video!  Hope you can forgive me! ;)

Right after taking the video I overheard the group behind me say they wanted to pray before they headed to their corrals so I asked if they would mind if I joined them… It was awesome!  Then I took another potty break, but had to wait in line this time for about 5 minutes.  I also decided that I didn’t want to carry my new fuel belt handheld because it had looked like they had plenty of water stations and I didn’t want to carry something like that after only carrying it for about 2 miles before Saturday.  So, I strapped on my SPIbelt with my cell phone and one tri berry GU since they had a GU station as well around mile 6 or so and handed my bag and handheld to my dad.

After getting loosened up a bit and doing some breathing exercises to calm myself (and giving hugs and kisses to my parents) i headed to Corral #2 since my bib was #2203 and I had an estimated finishing time of 2:30:00  … yeah, i totally guessed when I registered cuz I had NO clue what I was doing or if I could even finish 13.1 miles and how long it would even take me!  Spoiler alert… I did finish! Just not in the time I thought…

After talking to a few people and getting really excited (I think it helped that it was an all women event for my first half marathon) the guy from the magazine did a few announcements and then Jo Dee Messina sang the national anthem…

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger

 

In front of me:

Behind me (and yes, that girl is wearing the same shirt as me):

 
AND THEN… after a reminder that the 5k would start after all the Half Marathoners were on their way…

BOOM! We were off!!

 

NEXT:  Women’s Running Magazine Half Marathon Race Recap Part 3: The Race (for real this time)