Running My First Half Marathon in Pictures, Part 1

Instead of talking about running my first half marathon, I’m going to show you in pictures.

The Day Before Running My First Half Marathon

Most races have some sort of expo the day before where you go to pick up your race packet which includes your race bib (number), tracking tag, shirt (if you get one) and a bunch of information from the sponsors. Since the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon Virginia Beach is a huge race (almost 20,000 runners), the expo was large too. I can’t believe at this point that I will be running my first half marathon in less than 24 hours.

I couldn’t resist the red carpet!

Medal for running my first half marathon.

First half marathon race map.

Starting Line! Here I will begin running my first half marathon.

Running My First Half Marathon

My day began at 4:30 am when my alarm went off. I tried to get a good night’s sleep before running my first half marathon, but I had a hard time sleeping.

All dressed and ready for running my first half marathon.

No, I’m not holding a light saber, it’s the reflective part of my running shorts. I look like I’m glowing.

Getting There

We drove to the Virginia Beach Amphitheater where we parked (and someone we knew parked right next to us, how is that for luck.) We took a 20 minute shuttle bus to the Virginia Beach Convention Center. We basically stood around for over an hour waiting. Will I ever be running my first half marathon?

Getting my running apps set up and drinking my G2.

I was so ready to start running my first half marathon. The race started at 7:00 am.

Sun coming up while we are waiting in our corrals for race to start.

They let us go in corrals every 1-2 minutes.

The sea of people in their corrals waiting....

I was in corral 19 so it was about 7:35 am when my corral finally got to the starting line.

I'm now running my first half marathon as I cross the starting line.

I started out running at a 10:50 pace and I remembered that I needed to slow down. I tried and thought I was running really slow, but I was still running an 11:30 mile pace. For me that is good, but not to start running my first half marathon.

I am doing it!!

Bands were playing along the way.

The sun coming up over the beach as I was running along Atlantic Ave.

A view of me running taken by Jason with my Sony WX9 camera.

Dairy Queen by the beach. I almost stopped. 😀

I'm getting into a groove...5k done, 10 more miles to go.

I completed the 5k and felt awesome. I was going at what I thought was a really slow pace. I was running about an 11:45 mile which for me isn’t slow. I usually average a 13 minute mile when I do long runs. I’m an insanely slow runner, but I love it that way and who cares because I’m running my first half marathon.

Coming up on the only hills on a bridge.

The best part of this half marathon is that it is a flat course. The only elevation is the bridge. It’s not bad at mile 4.25, but the other side looks a lot worse and I’ll hit that at mile 11.5. At this point, I started to see people coming the other way meaning they had run 11.5 miles already. But I’m running my first half marathon, and my goal was to finish and not worry about time.

Cheering us along the way.

Along the way there were groups of neighbors dressed up in a theme cheering us on. This was the group that won the award for the best block.

Still running my first half marathon..

At this point I’ve been running over an hour and feeling great. It’s been about 5 miles here. YAY! I’m running my first half marathon!!

It's the Aquarium.

I’m still doing awesome. Finished the 10k in record time and I feel good. But it was shortly after this where I hit a wall.

Finished a 10k and almost halfway.

Part 2 of Running My First Half Marathon in Pictures