St. Louis Half Marathon

I could not have asked for a better first experience for my half marathon. Everything was PERFECT!

I went down with 3 other friends for the event. It was nice to have some girl time. For the actual race I did not run with my friends. 2 of them had specifically trained for this together & they stuck together side by side during the race. The other 2 of us ran at a different speed/pace than them so we raced alone. That was fine, I had my ipod on and was jammin away on my own.

My finish time was 1 hour 45 min. & 9 seconds. That is an average of an 8 minute mile. That is EXACTLY what my goal was. There were 12,500 who registered for the 1/2 marathon alone. 10,710 finished. I ranked 743rd overall. 165th out of 6821 women & 21st in my age division that had 1,122 women in it.


You know I'm quite the picture freak, so I have plenty to share If you are on my facebook, there is a lot more posted there. Here is a little bit of a visual tour of my race experience.

Hanging out the day before, there were tulips EVERYWHERE, which reminded me of a good friend who loves tulips. I stopped to take a picture in front of them.


From our hotel we had to walk & pick up our races packets at the expo. That was located a little over a mile away, so we set out on a little trek to find this place. The front desk gave us some misleading directions & we ended up in a not so upstanding neighborhood. We quickly got out of there and finally found the right direction to be heading and got all of our race gear secured. We stopped along the way taking pictures. This one is right across the street from the infamous Union Station.


This was taken as I crossed the start line:


Taken at the beginning of the race:


The view as we started, we turned before we got all the way down to the Arch plaza:


I was trying to portray my distaste for my being forced to run by Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardnials *bleck*.


I saw a lot of funny things along the way. I happened to have my camera out at the moment so I snapped it. I did not have my camera out when I saw the guy playing bagpipes, in full Scottish gear or the old guy playing a banjo or the Catholic priest who was sprinkling holy water and chanting/praying over the runners or the marching band belting out some tunes. There was too much to capture. I have a special gear belt that I wear that I can put things in so my hands are free. I only took my camera out every few miles. AND I never stopped running to takes these pictures, I was moving the whole time.


Half way done:


One mile left:


Getting ready to cross the finish line: They called my name as I crossed right after I took this picture it give me a huge rush and I lifted both arms up in a victory pump.


Right after I finished:


With my finishing medal, legs were starting to cramp up really bad!