groppi girl blogs

Yeap…another race report. Don’t worry though. They will be back in full effect in the fall. This race report concludes the sixth half marathon I’ve done in as many months. The WDW Half (as part of the Goofy Challenge) in January, the Princess and New Bedford Half Marathons in March, the Run to Remember in May, and the Old Sandwich Road Race and 13.1 Boston in June.

The 13.1 Boston was supposed to be a great day. My friend Katie had made the pilgrimage up from Baltimore to participate and we were disappointed. First of all, the race wasn’t even in Boston. It was through Canton and Milton. The course was nice but the hills were almost tortuous. My friend Ann Marie, who raced with us, said it best…it was more like mountain running.  The water stops ran out of cups so 50% of the runners had to either drink out of communal jugs or get water poured into their palms…not how it should be for a half marathon at the end of June…however, I digress.

It was pretty cool that the photographers got us at the starting line. Jill is in the pink tank and I’m in the blue. The weird thing was that to get to the start you had to climb over a rock wall….hmmrff.

The course was challenging. It was up steep hills 50% of the course. My sister Jill is trying to bounce back from an IT Band problem and this wasn’t a good race for her. So, instead of running alone, I decided to jog it slow with her and get her to the finish line. She was amazingly strong to tough it out and finish!!!! Now, she is on a strict rest schedule until Sunday, when we’ll take a test run.

Here we are at the finish…it was by far the worst half marathon we had ever run (over 14 minutes of our next worst time ever). It was disorganized, injured laden and tough. But it’s finished and it’s in the books. I’m so proud of Katie, Jill and Ann Marie for their strong finishes. The race committee tried to pull up the timing mats early on Katie and Ann Marie. But they made it to the finish just as the clock was being taken down. Jill and I were able to get their medals for them and award them at their finish.

The food after wasn’t that bad. There was plenty of it and Katie was proudly showing off her muffin at the finish.

It was a good time with great friends. I just wish that 13.1 Boston would get their act together and put an organized race out there. I look forward to the Philly Rock’n'Roll Half Marathon so I can put another decent time back on the books.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 11:26 am and is filed under running!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.