Easy Being Greene

Zooma Annapolis Half Marathon

It was a beautiful day for a run!

K picked me up at 5:30 and we were off to Annapolis. We arrived around 6 with no traffic delays and plenty of parking. Did the normal pre race stuff and before we knew it, it was time to start!

Here we are! I look tired and I’m not quite ready yet.

I moseyed on over between the 7:00 and 8:00 pace markers. There really weren’t any 6:00s, so they shuttled everybody forward. No lie - I basically started on the start line. It was awesome.  

I tried to get a picture of the arch, but I was too close to get a good shot. 

As I started, people were flying past me, but I had to keep telling myself to run my own race and pace myself. Mile 1 - 7:10. Too fast to sustain, I needed to slow down. I gradually slowed down for the next two miles which was really good. 

The first 4 miles of the race went by really quickly. Annapolis is such a cute city. I enjoyed running down the cobblestone and admiring the cute shops. 

I knew the BRIDGE was coming because the Inaugural Annapolis Half Marathon used a very similar course. But I have an odd love for hills and definitely see them as an opportunity to pass people. It was on the bridge, however, that the 1:40 pacer caught up to me. We stayed pretty close the rest of the race. He stayed just ahead of me until mile 7 and then I pulled ahead for the rest of the race.

I saw my friend K around mile 8.5 (her 6.5ish) right after the aid station that had FREE GU! I was so excited to see her that I dropped my FREE GU instead of putting it in my belt. It was chocolate too. I was bummed. 

Rest of the race went by pretty quickly for me. The BRIDGE wasn’t as bad going back - it was less of an incline. During the last mile, a few people made a comment about the elephant on my shirt. Made my race. =)

I like races that have a finish line before you know it. This race did not have that. But I still gave it all I had at the end and when I saw 1:38:44 as I was nearing the finish line, I pushed it even more to get under 1:39.

Then K finished a little later.

Then we partied.

It was a lot of fun! On the way out, there was a TON of bananas left over so I did some grocery shopping. I won’t show you how many I nabbed, but let’s just say, some might have to go in the fridge or freezer.