Sunday was RACE DAY! I got up feeling good but knew I was going to take it easy. The race was more emotional than I thought it would be (I did do it with baby gator on board). But I felt good and it's amazing even to me that I can finish a half marathon 15 weeks pregnant. I finished in 2:18:18 (about a 10:30 pace). Not my fastest half marathon but still such a big accomplishment!
Now to breakdown the actual event.
Getting to the start I had figured I would just catch a cab from our hotel to Union Square, I walked around outside our hotel for 10 minutes with no luck and another girl from Colorado walked out and I asked if she would like to go call a cab together... well come to find out she actually had a towncar waiting that was already paid for. She said jump in and we'll go to the startline together. I offered to pay something but she said it's already paid. So I took her picture at the start and emailed it to her after the race.
It was in the fifties during the race. There was a heavy fog on the bay in the morning keeping the temps down along the water. The “scenic” parts weren’t that scenic due to the fog but I drove the course the day before and got to see it without the fog. Other than running stadium steps for a mile+, I don’t think there was any hill in Atlanta that would compare to the hill I encountered on mile 6. I started running up the hill but realized I was probably running just as fast as I could walk it so I began the uphill trek at a quick walk. I had brought my ipod (no headphones) with me to sync up to my Nike+ and keep track of how my pace was throughout the race but at the start it froze up and became useless so I tossed it to Craig at mile 3. I was surprised at how quickly each mile went by, especially since I was running slower than normal, I was by myself and I walked a mile of the race> I saw Craig at mile 8. When I got to the Cliff House at mile 10 I couldn’t believe that there was only 3 miles left. I definitely listened to my doctor and took it easy for the entire race.
Firemen in tuxes handed us our necklaces
The race is definitely all about the women running it and had spectators all along the route. The expo (which they called an expotique) was really ALL about Nike, if you had forgotten bodyglide or any other race supplies you were on your own for tracking it down in San Fran but overall it was a fun race. Merchandise was available at Niketown if you wanted to wait 30+ minutes in line.
The runner tracking and timing was not the race’s strongest point. They used eternal timing devices, which was the first time I’ve ever used that brand. Most races of that size are moving towards the D-tags that are disposable or the timing chips. I couldn’t find my official time until Monday night when I googled for race results and they weren’t posted on Nike’s site until Thursday. I also signed my husband up to receive text messages of how I was doing and they came randomly and actually said I finished in the future. They charged people a couple of dollars to track and are refunding everyone for the mixup. The actual texts were something like this... "Melissa Neubauer has passed the 10km location of NWM at 8:08:44 today." and "Melissa Neubauer has completed the NWM Race at 16:24:54 today" and those were the only 2 texts he got. The one saying I finished was delivered to him at least an hour after I had finished running.
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