This weekend was the Ocean City Half Marathon! C'est finit! I ran with Liz, Paul, Maureen and Zach. Everyone finished strong and celebrated heartily.

Liz, Paul and Zach broke ahead from me and Maureen at the start. I wasn't going for a time (okay, secretly I wanted to finish below 2h 30m, which I did with a time of 2:26). Mostly though, I just wanted to finish the race.

Note Maureen's lack of bib

Maureen had planned on running in the 5k, but the race was full, so she decided to just run it without a bib. As we were all lined up at about 6:55 am, Zach pointed out that the 5k didn't start until 7:45am. Not wanting to wait around, Maureen decided to run in the half marathon and turn around or stop whenever she felt like it. By the time we reached the 6 mile mark, she had not yet turned around and decided to run the half marathon. Girlfriend didn't train for this at all. Our pace was a rather leisurely 11:00 minute mile, but we gabbed the whole way, which made the miles pass way faster than any playlist I could have come up with.

Mile 3

While the idea of running 13 miles was pretty significant, the run itself was exactly as expected and felt completely normal. We started at the bottom tip of Ocean City, Maryland, by the boardwalk rides and ran through neighborhoods, past some cows, marshes, a pit beef stand, through the woods, past old eastern shore homes and finished by crossing the bridge to Assateague Island. 

Mile 12

Post race jello legs = no more standing

Post race rum runner at Seacrets also = no more standing

This dude was awesome. He was spending his 80 somethingth birthday at Seacrets.
His cane was stuck in the sand below the bar. 

While running, Maureen mentioned that she was happy to have run her first relay with her dad and the half with me. I like that idea, of races being excuses to see friends. It takes some of the edge off of the race and ensures a fun weekend with friends.