This past weekend I completed my 10th state of my 50 half marathons x 50 states list. Fives states each in the last two years, so I am going at an “okay-rate” but I certainly need to do more so I can then get a start on the 50 marathons x 50 states list.
So to get people up to date:
2018 – West Virginia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Virginia
2017 – Maryland, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware, New York
As of right now, this was my last half marathon for 2018. This time last year I was in my 3rd race in six weeks. But with school on the weekends it was tough to get any other race on the weekend.
Expo Recap:
The Expo was fun. The energy was BOOMING! This race has been running for over 40 years so it’s something I would come to expect with a large expo like this. There were free samples of all different types of gels, guu, food, and beer.
You have all the different sign up for our race vendors and booths. I was even did the race massage (from a Chiropractic booth — GO CHIROS!). I got on TENS. All the stuff that I ask our patients to do, I was doing the same thing. I needed to feel as good as possible and at big expos like this for races, you have to take advantage. It was a really fun expo and I had a lot of fun with it.
Sneaker Recap:
I wore the Nike Vaporfly 4%, series 1. It’s my race day shoe. I considered wearing the new Nike Flyknit Vaporfly 4% but I hadn’t even unboxed it yet so I didn’t want to run the risk.
Nike has not released new colors of the original Vaporfly 4% but I wish they would. I was walking around prior to the race and I thought I had seen a runner wearing a sample pair of a Vaporfly silhouette because it had been a colorway I had never seen before. I was going to ask but I chose not too.
Course Recap:
The course was awesome! It was considerably flatter compared to Boston last month and one of the flatter courses I have run in the last ten races. There were water and gatorade stations every 2 miles and then at Mile 8 the stations came at every mile marker. At Mile 10, there was a Pickle Juice station. I had completely forgotten it was mentioned at the beginning of the race and when I grabbed the cup from one of the volunteers (thinking it was gatorade) at Mile 10, I completely missed my mouth and half the juice got up my nose and it burned! Right before I had decided to drink it, I was thinking to myself this cup is a different color (white cups were water and blue cups were gatorade) from the other two, oh well. My nose was burning for about a mile it was uncomfortable.
One thing that was noticeable about this course was it was not nearly as packed as other races I have run in the past. The beginning, halfway point, and ending were very packed but throughout the rest of the race, there was not much. The best part of the course was the last 5K (3.1 miles). It was downhill. There was a gradual decline at Mile 10 but at around Mile 12 it was a considerable downhill and the last 200 meters was a giant hill I just let it fly and run as fast as I could.
The course was nicely designed. There was road, trail, scenery, and downtown. The course was very friendly on the legs and I didn’t feel exhausted like I did in other previous races.
Closing Thoughts:
This was a great race. I was happy because I hit my goal of going sub 1:25. I finished officially at 1:24:16. That effort had me at:
Overall: 117th
Male: 91st
Division (25-29): 23rd
10K: 40:39 (6:33/mile)
Finish: 1:24:15 (6:26/mile)
I could not have been any happier when I crossed the line to take the photo of the timing clock that was sub 1:25:00. That was the goal for 2018 was to run sub 1:25 and I did it.
The stuff that gave you at the end of race was also great! You got a nice running hat and a blanket. They had shuttles to take you to the food banquet they had for participants too.
This is certainly a race I urge every to do. I was really happy with how this race turned out to complete Virginia off my list of states. I still want to do the Shamrock Run in March because I have heard really good things about that race but it will have to wait. I had a great experience with Richmond Half-marathon and it makes it even better setting a personal best.