Autum and Angie at the One City Half

Between all three events there were around 2,700 participants.

My sister Autum and I traveled down there on in search of PRs in the half marathon.

One City Half Marathon Race Recap

Although I didn’t plan a MTA meet up there ended up being several MTA listeners doing the race and a few contacted me to arrange a time to get together. I got to see Dana, husband Michael, and daughters Brooklyn and Bristol along with her Aunt who were all doing the races. I also saw Drew, his wife Kelsey and baby Jack at the expo along with listener Lisa and her friend who are doing a race in all 50 states together.

Race Morning

On race morning we were bused to the half marathon starting line at a local school. It was nice to have a warm indoor place to wait and bathrooms. Just before the start of the race we dropped off a gear check bag and got into the start corral. The weather was around 30 degrees but it promised to be a sunny day.

Autum and I decided to run at our own paces since we were both going for PR’s. I felt fairly relaxed pre race even though I hadn’t raced a half marathon since 2011 and this was only my 4th official half marathon (my previous PR was 1:53:31). My period had started that morning and I was dealing with a bit of GI upset and cramps but otherwise felt okay. My goal was just to keep pushing throughout the race and see what I had in me.

The Course

The course was well supported as it wound through the city and through a park. There weren’t many spectators out but the aid stations were very enthusiastic. There were a couple of small hills but generally it was very flat. The sun came out and although it was cold it felt like perfect running weather.

I ran according to effort and although it was uncomfortable to keep pushing I reminded myself that it would only hurt for half the amount of time a marathon would. I also kept reminding myself that I was done after mile 13 so I didn’t need to save any energy.

The most my pace varied during the race was about 20 seconds per mile and I finished in 1:37:28 with an average pace of 7:26/mi. I was 74/550 overall, 19/285 female, and 5/49 in my AG, and a PR of 16 min, 3 sec.

Finisher’s Festival

While I was waiting around for Autum to finish a local reporter talked to me and I ended up in a news story. They gave out finisher’s medals, disposible jackets or heat sheets, had water and sports drink, and Panera bagels and cream cheese at the finish line. Autum finished in 1:49:47 which was a 10 min PR for her and 30 minutes faster than her HM time 3 months ago.

We then walked over to the finisher’s festival where they had various food trucks and beer. They also had these warming heaters set up and we had started to get chilled and went to warm our hands.

While we were standing there a guy asked Autum, “where’d you get that hat?” (she was wearing her MTA hat). She said, “Marathon Training Academy.” The guy then looked at me and said, “OMG, it’s Angie!” Turns out that Andrew and Chuck who paced the 1:30 HM group are MTA listeners. It was a lot of fun to talk to them. There were a couple of other listeners there who I didn’t end up getting to meet.