spirit of st. louis family fitness weekend 1/2 marathon...

...sunday greeted me at 4:45am with an outside temperature of 32 degrees -- frost advisory. i knew i needed to get food in me 2 hours prior to race time, so i made myself get up and fix some oatmeal and a protein shake. after eating i gave in to the temptation of laying back down. it didn't last long though since i needed to be out the door at 6am.

...deciding what to wear had been done the night before; however, since the weather was so much colder, i opted for some running tights to wear under my shorts and a dry-fit long sleeved shirt. a cardinals visor, my fox river socks, and my fabulous asics gt-2100 shoes completed my outfit as i ran out the door with steve to get a good parking spot.

...we parked at union station at 6:20am -- 40 mins til race time. we opted to sit in the warm car for a bit but eventually made our way to the starting line. 10,000 people were standing around waiting for the same thing. at 7am exactly the crowd began to move...very slowly we made our way to the official starting line. for those of you not aware, races are timed with two times: a clock time, and a chip time. the clock is started as soon as the gun goes off. the chips are mounted on each person's shoe and mark their individual time as they cross the start and finish line. in the case of this race...the difference between my clock time and my chip time was 4 mins. this is due to having so many people in front of me that it took me 4 mins to reach the starting line.

...we began the run at a slow, even pace. we headed east down market street to broadway and then ran south to the brewery. running around the brewery was awesome -- it's so pretty around there and they had the clydesdale horses out in the pasture as we ran through. we circled back to broadway and made it back to where we started and began the climb. for those of you not from st. louis, there is a slow, gradual incline up market street and forest park parkway which is where the race traveled. all in all, we ran rolling hills for the better part of 7 miles on sunday.

...around mile #10 my knee began to ache. i have a problem with my ITB being tight and it causes runner's knee occasionally when i run long distances. the constant pounding on asphalt was probably to blame in this situation and i groaned as i knew the last 5K was going to be painful. at this point, steve and i were making excellent time. our mile splits were around 9:15-9:30 -- much faster than our training runs. given my knee pain, we slowed a bit at the end, but i pushed on and finished strong with a final time of 2:08:59 averaging 9:50 per mile.

...i loved everything about sunday's run. it was excellent weather (i like to run in the cold) and the course had enough variety that i didn't get bored. race photos will be posted soon...i'll keep you informed so you can check me out.

...thanks again to everyone who encouraged me! i can't wait to do another one. hopefully by next spring i'll be able to beef it up to a full marathon. we'll see...