Divas Half Marathon Race Recap

 

Last weekend I made my way to Myrtle Beach, SC which is about an hour and 20 minutes from out home.

We spend a lot of time at the beach with friends so every opportunity to run at the beach I always jump on it. I registered for the Diva half sometime last year before the price increase. All you had to say was champagne and shirtless men at the finish and I am there!

My running has been less than stellar recently. I have not been running as much or near as fast. I think over the past 3 1/2 years I have completely worn my body down with a ton of running and no rest.

So, I have used CrossFit as an alternate workout and decreased my mileage for a while to give the body some recovery time from running.

With that being said, I didn’t train much for this race. I didn’t set any time goals or set any expectations other than I would be thrilled to be under 1:45.

We arrived at the beach house around 11:00 and met up with Michael and Lauren. They boys stayed to do yard work and we headed to the Expo.

The expo was awful. There were too many booths and too many people and space that was just too small. I don’t usually get claustrophobia, but I think I caught it in that expo. Lauren and I got our stuff, snapped a few pictures, and got the heck out of there!

After we ate lunch at McAlister’s we headed down to the beach to meet the boys. The weather was a little cool but still a beautiful afternoon to sit on the beach and enjoy being with friends. We hit the showers after that and then headed to Market Commons to eat at Travinia Italian Kitchen. We live at Market Commons when we are at the beach and surprisingly we had never been here. It was delish!

Sunday morning the alarm went off at 5:00. We had to drive to the aquatics center to park and take the bus to the starting line. There was plenty of parking, plenty of buses, and a perfectly clean restroom inside the aquatics center! Halleluja!!! I made note of that bathroom because the seat was still up from where they had cleaned it last. That would be a first for me as far as clean race day bathrooms go! Y’all know how that is!

We got to the start line about 45 minutes early and I had to hit the bathrooms several more times. I really hate when this happens to me but it ALWAYS happens to me. Everyone says it’s because I over think the bathroom thing too much and it makes me have to go. I don’t know if I believe all that!

And shortly thereafter, I lined up behind the 1:44 pace and mapped out my game plan. I wanted to stay with or right behind her the whole race. (That did not happen.)

Right before we started we bowed for a moment of silence for Boston. I shed a few more tears and thanked God for giving me the ability to race the Diva race that morning.

Then I put my gameface on and took off. Might I add I took off way too fast like I always do! I ended up way ahead of the pacer.

I started with a 7:58 mile, then a 7:51 mile, then a 7:45 mile. I knew it was come back to bite me in the butt….and it did about mile 6.

I started getting really hot and couldn’t get my breathing right. After about mile 5 I never ran another sub 8.

I ended up running an official time of 1:46:02. That was good for 68th place overall out of 3,300 people and 9th place in the 25-29 age group. I am not disappointed with this but it is nowhere near my best or what I am capable of. I think my body is still in “take a break from running for a while” mode.

Right before we turned the final corner to the finish there were volunteers passing out pink boas and crowns. I did not like the fact that I had to slow down to grab and then situate them on my head and around my neck. Although that was kind of annoying, the photo opp was too good to pass up! It is not everyday that you have a good excuse to wear a boa and tiara, so I took advantage of the opportunity!

At the finish a seriously hot shirtless hunk handed me my medal, congratulated me, and gave me a high five! That was totally worth running! I then received a rose, champagne, and some delicious cookies and water.

Overall it was a great race that was well organized! I would definitely do it again! Hopefully next year I can convince my mom and sister to do it with me. I am still working on that!