Monday, October 4, 2010

Hershey Half Marathon

Yesterday was the inaugural Hershey Park Half Marathon. I decided to sign up when Chris and I went there for our anniversary in June and when I told Carolyn about it, she decided that she would like to train for a half and see how she did. After months of sticking with her training plan, and after a successful 10K race 2 weeks ago, she was ready to conquer this challenge! We drove out Saturday with the kids and went to the race expo, kids fun run and then to the park, where we were able to enjoy the rides for free from 6-9pm. We headed to the Hershey Lodge to rest our heads for the night and we all fell happily to sleep.

We awoke to a beautiful, slightly chilly morning on Sunday and Carolyn was a pro, getting dressed in the dark after having all of her race gear laid out the night before. (She did plenty of "reading up" on race day preparations ahead of time). We ate our Cliff Bars and headed to the race site. We arrived more than an hour early, got great parking and spent the time enjoying the pre-race excitement, warming up, and laughing at all of the Hershey Bar characters who were milling about. We lined up and literally bumped into 2 girls that I know from a nearby neighborhood. The gun went off and we were off and running!!

It was a great course, with amenities every 2 miles and plenty of volunteers. What a beautiful morning and the miles ticked away. Carolyn was chatty and breathing comfortably the whole time. We both had our GPS watches on and I was hoping we weren't going too quickly halfway through as we were averaging 8:05-8:10 miles. It got a little windy and hilly along the second half but Carolyn was a champ. Before we knew it, we were at mile 12 and heading back toward Hershey Park. The finish was in their large sports stadium and Chris and the kids were waiting for us inside. Here we are as we just got into the stadium. Carolyn is in green and I'm in yellow.


As we rounded the corner, Carolyn took off in a full sprint. If you look closely at this picture you will see that I am laughing hard because I literally couldn't keep up. I have never had as much energy as she did at the end of a race!!

And here we are crossing the finish!! The time on the clock is when the gun went off, but it took us about 30 seconds to cross the starting line, so our actual finish time is under 1 hr 48 minutes! Carolyn did fantastic!! I literally couldn't keep up with her and you can see she finished 2 places ahead of me.

Afterwards, we met up with the kids and Chris and enjoyed the great post-race spread and the high that comes with a race well run. We ran very consistent miles and I think Carolyn has potential to best her time if she would so choose. Especially after she peeled off her sock to reveal a large blister that she began to notice at mile 6. She didn't say a word about it until the race was over and I still have no idea how she ran so fast at the end. I am so proud of her and so glad that we could share this awesome experience together. We are blessed indeed!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great experience for the two of you! :) Congrats...

Chris said...

What a fun time. Great run for both of you....you made daddy and the kiddo's proud!

Carolyn said...

Still feeling the high from the weekend! Thank you for spending it with me and Brooke! We loved spending it with you.

Lorraine said...

Nice post about the HHM and great photos too! 1hr 48 min is impressive! Congratulations! :D