Charleston Half Marathon...It's been a while!

This was my first race of 2016 and actually my first running race since Myrtle Beach marathon last February.  Seems like I have done alot of running since then but no races.  I was super excited about running the Charleston Half Maraton.  Between all the holiday travel and craziness, I was able to get all my training in for the race, except for just a few runs so I went into this race pretty confident that I could meet my goal of breaking 2 hours.  Huge thanks to Forrest for making me a training plan:) Years ago when all I did was run I was always sure, or pretty sure unless something out of my control happened, that I could break 2 hours.  I will be honest with you breaking 2 hours is not easy-it involves a consistent steady pace with not much room for error and 13.1 miles is still a pretty far way to run.

It was a rainy drive to Charleston on Friday but the rain cleared out by the time we got there.  We checked into the hotel and headed to the expo.  Picked up our race packets and #4554 & #4555 were good to go.  We met Scottie for dinner at Fleet Landing, but first took a short walk along downtown and the marina...Charleston is a beautiful city.

The race didn't start til 8:00 a.m. so needless to say we had plenty of time to get ready that morning.  Our hotel was close enough to walk to the Start!  It was a little cool out (50s) so we met Lauren in the gym to stay warm until closer to start time.

Caught a photo op on the way...

Time to head out.

Trey and I had already planned to run this race together.  We started a little too far back at the beginning of the race so the first few miles consisted of dodging the flooded streets, darting in and out of runners, jumping curbs, etc. until we could settle into a good pace.  Trey Whitley is not use to that and is not a fan.  I pretty much just followed his lead.

Once we made our way through the crowd it thinned out some and we were able to run together with no problem...I loved running through downtown - it was beautiful.

I had a GREAT race and felt great the whole time!  I pushed it on the last mile (8:28 pace), which may have contributed to my "feel bad" afterwards:(  As always - I was really happy to see the Finish Line...I was all smiles at the finish!  1:56:27!!

LOVE crossing the Finish Line with Trey...

Instead of going through the shoot to the food, we opted to cut through an alley and go try to see  Scottie headed to the finish.  My body let me know twice that I needed some food but I ignored it and waited entirely too long to eat afterwards!! I spent the better part of an hour, sitting on curbs & in the middle of sidewalks, hoping and praying that I was going to recover and not be out the rest of the day.

BUT after about an hour...there's not much an apple, potato chips, coke and a grapefruit pale ale won't fix:)

We got back to room, showered and headed back out to some local breweries...it was a GREAT day and I would definitely do this race again!

Gotta Run...

Next up:  Folly Beach Half Marathon