Manchester Half Marathon

This is me, Sunday at about 7:15am, posing in my race outfit. Nerd alert! I was excited for the race and also feeling pretty well rested, since Daylight Savings Time gave me an extra hour of sleep!

On Saturday night Pat and I went to Julia and Andrew's house for dinner. Julia and I were running the Manchester Half Marathon together, so she invited us over for a carbo-loading dinner. We had pasta with delicious homemade sauce, salad, garlic bread, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! We had a great time hanging out, but made it an early night due to the race the next morning.

I fueled up with a cup of coffee (with honey instead of sugar- so good!), a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of whole wheat toast with almond butter. 

Here are Jules and I starting to race:

We've run a couple half marathons together and some shorter races, too. We always start together, but she is a very fast and amazing runner (I like to call her a machine) so she quickly outpaces me.

The route was part road, part trails. Here I am coming out of the trails:

And in the final stretch:

I finished at 1:57:06 (pace 8:57 minutes per mile), which was a little disappointing because that makes it my slowest half marathon! I'm not sure why I wasn't faster, because I did follow my training program pretty closely. The route was pretty hilly and challenging, and it was very cold, but I don't know if I can really blame those factors. When it was over I felt pretty good about the race, I felt good while running it and like I had put in a good effort, so that is important. 

Me and Jules after the race:

There was lots of good food after the race to refuel with (including a soup cook-off put on by several local restaurants). This was my first time running the Manchester Half Marathon, and I think I'll definitely run it again next year. The race expo was fun, there were digital clocks every 2 miles throughout the race (which is nice to pace yourself with) and the food was great! We also got nice long-sleeved technical shirts, which are one of the perks to running races:

After a loooong hot shower I reluctantly put on a dress and Pat and I headed down to Massachusetts for our good friends' daughter's Christening. Ava was born in April and is one of the happiest babies I've seen... and very beautiful!

Me and Ava:

Ava, without her long Christening gown:

Today I'm feeling pretty sore from the race. No matter how much stretching you do, races are a lot harder to recover from then just a long run, because you put forth a lot more effort in a race. Today I'm going to walk and do a lot more stretching. Next Sunday is the Chilly Half Marathon with Jim!