"Frozen" Rock Half Marathon

Today my friend Catherine and I ran the White Rock half marathon with about 24,998 people.  I wasn't going to run this race because it was so expensive and I just hadn't planned on it, but Catherine's friend from work who had registered for the half marathon got injured and couldn't do it, so I took her place.  

Catherine's Family Pre- race

I met up with Catherine and her family at her parent's house ahead of time because all 3 of her sisters, her mom, and her husband were also running it.

Catherine and I still dry before the race...not for long though.

We got pictures and loaded up in the SUV and her dad drove us to the race and dropped us off.  We were all quite sexy in our ponchos.  I should have taken a picture but it was too much trouble to get the camera out from under the poncho.  Trust me on this one...good thing there isn't a picture...It wouldn't have been pretty. :-)

We split off from her family because we were the slower two, so we hit up the porta potty line and then jumped in at the last of the corrals.  By the time we got to the starting line, 30 minutes had already passed from the time the race started.  It was packed, but it wasn't too miserable.  It was cold, but not rainy too bad at that point.  

So off we go, the rain would come in waves and by mile 1.5 Catherine had dropped her poncho on the side of the road because it was just awful running in it.  I couldn't decide what I wanted to do.  I really didn't want to be soaked, but I hated running in that thing.  So, I let her run for about half a mile and see what she thought.  She said it was much better, so I trusted her.  (I don't know why, she is also the crazy girl that had talked me into this race to begin with!) So by mile 3, I was in shirt, shorts, and arm warmers.   By mile 6 I had dodged all possible puddles, until I hit a huge one...Dang it!  I hate wet socks!  At this point, what else could get wet, right...Head to toe soaked.  This was also about the point where Catherine's hip and ankle started hurting her really bad.  I could tell she wasn't her normal jovial self and that she was hurting.  We kept running.  It seemed to not hurt as bad if she ran so on we went.  Our pace dropped by that point because we had to slow down, but she was feeling pretty miserable.  About mile 8, we ran into her mom who had started in an earlier corral than we had.  Then right past her mom, we ran into Shannon and Elaine.  That was fun!  It was good to see familiar faces at that point.  I was feeling good until about mile 9 -10 and I felt like I had run into a brick wall.  I never feel that way on half marathons!!!  What was going wrong?  We walked for a little and took some Honeystingers and off we went.  Then, I felt much better.  We finished the race in about 2:42 I think.  I forgot to stop my Garmin!  But Catherine, Shannon, Elaine, and I all finished together!  How crazy is that with all the people there we ran into our friends and were able to finish it with them.  

Elaine, Shannon, Catherine, and Me after the race...

We cross the finish line and are fed through the heat blanket line and into the building where the food, shirts, and finishers' medals are.  Catherine stopped to get her ankle iced immediately and off we went to hook up with her family.

We all hobbled back to the car and her dad drove us home!  Our own personal taxi service!  Back at their house, we all changed and ate.  It was so much fun.

All in all, it was a good race.  I had lots of fun and would totally do it again.  Although, next time, I will invest in a nice running, rain jacket.  And someone needs to invent a way to avoid the whole wet shoe, sock issue too! :-)

One more thing, to all my friends who ran the full marathon in that weather today, kudos to you!  Stephanie, Leslie, Jennifer, and Michelle - WOW!!!  Very impressive!  I can't imagine doing that today!  I was thinking of you guys the whole way!  So proud of you!