Frost Bite – Half Marathon

This is going to be one hell of a weekend I told myself on Friday night. Just like my header image I created couple of weeks before after signing up for four races. 

I have never attempted anything like this before so I was a little skeptical how everything was going to turn out and was keeping my fingers crossed that it should be favorable to me. This weekend would be special as I would be running a half marathon (Frost Bite) tomorrow and a full marathon (Mercedes Marathon) the next day.  I packed my bags on Fri night after dinner. Charged up my Garmin, double checked my to-carry list and hit the bed.

Got picked up by Diane at 9:45am and we headed to Cedars of Lebanon. A beautiful state park located at Lebanon, TN.  It was cold, very cold. We saw Keith warming up on our way to the parking lot.. Met Kim and Amanda, friends of Diane, and two awesome runners. After a brief conversation, we collected our BIB. My first Half-Marathon. Couple of folks wished me for my first half marathon and was asking me to run a full marathon soon. They gave me weird look when I told them that I have completed two full marathons already. :)

It was time. I was excited about running this one in my VFF. This would be the longest run on my VFF ever since I got them. The course was ‘relatively’ hilly and pretty much asphalt/gravel all the way. The race started on time and off we took off from the start line. Met a couple of folks from the ‘Flying Monkey’ marathon at the start line. They are everywhere. Again my VFF attracted lot of runner and were shooting questions at me. My answer was simple, ‘It’s great, my foot feels good, and you should give it a try’. I was feeling good running in them.

20 minutes into the run and I was really warmed up. Ran at an easy conversation pace for the first few miles. The final stretch, the long road was cruel. It seemed endless until we took a turn to enter the park area.  The course was pretty much hilly. I wanted to do a sub 2:00 but that seemed to be an impossible task. Missed by goal by 3 minutes, nevertheless it was my PR for my first Half Marathon. I crossed the finish line by 2:03:40 comfortably, posing for John who was clicking pictures at the finish line. (Thanks a lot John)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25398642

I was starving by now. Headed to the rest area and grabbed three slices of pepperoni pizza, pretzels and mountain dew. Met couple more runners who have come all the way from Kentucky. There were lots of runners curious about my VFF. Had a nice conversation with all of them while hogging my pizza. Diane soon joined us. After walking around a bit, I headed to hit the shower. It was still freaking cold and hot shower felt great.

My feet felt good. No soreness except for a little pain on my right ankle, can’t afford to get hurt especially with a marathon to run the tomorrow. It was 2:30 PM and we were all set to hit the road to Birmingham, AL for our Mercedes Marathon.

Alabama, here we come! :)