As promised, I am going to recap all of my races since the last blog daily. After NOLA, I went to Birmingham, AL to do the Mercedes Marathon Half. It was Valentines Day weekend, but the race was on February 16th. This was actually my first time going to that city, but as usual I don't get much time to see the city due to a quick turn around trip. I went with my sorority sister and running sister LaShawn. She was from there and her family was still there. We did a little site seeing, ate and got our rest for the race because we flew in early Saturday morning. So here are my thoughts from Expo to Post Race:
Expo: I was a little disappointed as it was very small, congested and boring. It was kind of good though because I didn't spend any money, lol. I did however get a couple items, but nothing to get excited about. Packet pick up was very easy and quick. They allowed shirt exchanges on site too which was nice. I ran into a couple friends, tooks some pics and they are included.
Race Day: I knew it was going to be hot because it was already feeling a little warm at the start. Although I had a plastic bag on, I had to remove my gloves because I was hot prior to the start. The corrals were nice, so wave start worked perfectly. The course was very nice and we had some hills, but it was not bad at all. What was nice was seeing the elites making their second loop to finish. Pretty cool, but showed me that I needed to run faster, ha. Oh before I forget, this was the first race I wore my Hokas! If you don't know about them, look them up and try. They work great for me.
Back to the race, so I was doing really good till I cramped up at mile 10! Between the humidity, sun beaming on us and it being hot, I was sweating faster than normal which took most of my salt intake away. So of course, I slowed it down and mostly walked the last 3 miles until I got near the finish where I was able to sprint it out!
Finish line/post race: Well like I said above, I sprinted to the finish, got my bling (Mercedes symbol), got a wrap and waited on my friend to cross the line. Once she came through, we stretched and then got split up because I was taking pictures which you will see some posted. What was nice was the fact that they handed out very nice cooling towels with the race info on it.
Overall, I thought this was a great race, fun, saw many many people, took lots of pictures and this race showed me that I needed to figure out my hydration issue. I did however figure it out and I will discuss that on my next blog. AND I would definitely do this race again.
Stay tuned!
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