Walkway Half Marathon Recap

I ran the Walkway Half Marathon this morning!

Friday afternoon I made the drive up to Poughkeepsie to pick up my bib & shirt. It was kind of a pain, but there was no race day pickup, so what can you do? The drive was over an hour, and then it took me another 15 minutes to successfully make my way into the correct parking area.

The expo was actually pretty big for the race size (2500 runners between the 5k, half and full marathon), and packet pickup was a breeze. I wandered around for a few minutes, but wasn't really in the mood to chat with expo booth people.

This morning I was up at 4:45. The plan was to leave as close to 5 as possible (they wanted people there 90 minutes before the race), but I didn't end up leaving until almost 5:20. The drive up was pretty uneventful and they had lots of volunteers to keep parking organized.

Even though there wasn't any race day packet pickup, the race did not start on time. We were about 15 minutes late - pretty common with the races I've run lately.

People are not good at lining themselves up according to pace time. There were people in front of me who walked the first hill in the first tenth of a mile - stopping to walk in the middle of the pack of runners - at least move over before you stop!

There were a couple of narrow areas in the first mile, and that, combined with the walkers, made the first mile my slowest. After we got off the road and onto the (paved) trails I started making better time.

Speaking of time, I broke the #1 rule of racing today - don't try anything new on race day. I tried the goal pace setting on my watch for the first time and quickly learned that the only stat I had available to me was my current pace. So, for the entire race I had no idea of the time and was dependent on mile markers. Not ideal.

The course was really pretty and very well organized (it was the first year for the half and full). There were water stations (and NUUN!) every 1.5 miles and lots of volunteers along the way to make sure no one got lost. The race claims to be "fast and flat," but according to my watch, it was hillier (938 feet!) than my last race!

I felt pretty good for most of the race, but at mile 9 I was hit by a killer side cramp. It hurt so bad I actually stopped for a few seconds to try to get it to stop.

The rest of the race was good, though it was starting to get hot out (not that it was cold at any point, I think it was around 70 degrees when I left the house).

I finished in 1:59:24! It's not a PR, but considering the heat (and the side cramp), I'm happy with it.

Aaaand I didn't take any pictures until I got home.

The medal is pretty cool - it's wood!

And now back to our regularly scheduled packing.