Racy Runners: 13.1 Run---My Son is a 1/2 Marathoner

Asbury Park 1/2 this morning (click on the link for Asbury Park; the website is amazing). It was WINDY and COLD--winds out of the East up to 37 mph. We knew it was going to be windy, and we revised our race goal to just finish. I was secretly hoping to beat my last years time and run the race in 2:10-2:15--but I planned on sticking with Conor the whole time.

We picked up race packets last night at Convention Hall--good thing we got there early, because at 5pm when they "officially" opened the line was kinda long and the good FREE loot was gone. Con and I picked up AWESOME jackets with Tilly on them. I thought they were for sale and I was going to buy on for Conor since this was his first 1/2 and I wanted him to have a memento. When the lady said she just had to mark our bib--the jackets were FREE--we picked up a couple more for the other racy runners and one sweatshirt. Here is the jacket:

The race shirts were cool (love Tilly designs), but once again it is a race shirt that I will NEVER wear--why are they sized so BIG. This was a small (big for even a men's small). I have a compilation of race shirts that will never be worn--I challenge a race director to make a good technical shirt that actually fits normally.

Conor of course was THRILLED to sit at Convention Hall as we waited for L to come and pick up her and R's packet.

After packet pickup we headed to Pete and Elda's (aka Carmen's Pizza) in Neptune---the BEST thin crust pizza on the East Coast--yes, you heard it here. Figured we would take this "carb loading" seriously.

Early to bed for us last night after catching up on our DVR'd shows--Modern Family, The Office (Will Farrell--totally hysterical), and Parks and Recreation--which in my mind is a brilliant show.

Up early, coffee in the am is a MUST for me and we both like to eat before we run. Got to Asbury Park in plenty of time to hit the bathrooms a hundred times before I ran (my secret is out--I go and then immediately get in line again--if not......well, let's just say you would not want to run behind me).

Here I am with fam--waiting...

Met up with L, L, and R--N was there with the Mommy Moves runners.

I had changed my outfit about 20 times before leaving the house--what to wear was a HUGE guess. Originally when the weather was supposed to be in the 50s and sunny, I had a running skirts, compression calf sleeves, and arm warmers---that option will have to wait for a warmer day. Instead I opted for running tights, long sleeve light tech shirt, tech hoodie, ear covers, baseball cap, and gloves. Turns out the outfit was perfect. For those that ran in shorts-the wind burn was evident on their legs--burrr.

Here we are starting out:

I made a kicka** playlist (I will post it separately) yesterday for the two of us, so we could keep pace with each other better, and I could not wait for Con to hear it -it worked GREAT.

We ran a slow/steady pace--slower than I would have liked, but Con was comfortable. We stopped at a couple of water stations for Con to drink Gatorade (he sweats a lot of salt out) and I gave him 2 Cliff Bloc at mile 4 and 2 at Mile 7. We also stopped at mile 7 for a bathroom break that took about 4-5 minutes of our race time:(

BUT--we finished in 2:26:45 (according to my Garmin and 2:29 according to the timer--but still waiting for official tag time--we were at the back of the pack when we started out). All in all a HUGE success. At mile 11 Con turned to me with a HUGE smile on his face and said, "We got this; we are running a 1/2 marathon"---I felt like a million bucks.