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My first double-half/back to back weekend! And I lived to tell about it! |
On Friday night, November 21, I left work to head to Newark
Airport and pick up a rental car for the weekend. Originally, I was going to pick up a car from
Hoboken but in the week before my trip, I lucked upon a $17 a day rental
instead of $45 per day. By 7pm, I was en
route to Annapolis, Maryland in a pretty blue Nissan Sentra.
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Ready to get going for the 7am start of the Annapolis Running Classic! |
I woke up at 5:00am and got myself ready and out the door by
5:45. The car had a thin film of frost
on the windshield, so I had to turn the front and rear defrosters on. It was definitely cold. I got to the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium at
6am, with more than enough time to warm up and pick up my bib prior to the
start of the race at 7. The temperature
at the start was 25 degrees.
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The view down Main Street in Annapolis toward the harbor |
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The Naval Academy Bridge, which I had to run over... twice. |
We proceeded toward the Naval Academy Bridge along King George Street, which was just after the 5-mile mark of the race.
Seeing it was jarring… you could easily see the crest of the bridge, and
you knew you’d be in for a tough climb to get over that elevation. Nevertheless, I trudged along. At about the midpoint of the bridge, we could
see the leaders of the race approaching, heading back toward the stadium for
their finish. We continued on, partly
along the highway and onto more hilly areas of the race on the other side of
the Severn River where there was another out-and-back. Luckily around the turnaround point was the 8 mile of the race, and I took another three minute walk break. Slippery here as well! I continued along and cheered on the other
runners who were making their way through the hills.
We returned across the Naval Academy Bridge for the second time, and then made a turn back toward downtown Annapolis on King George Street, which had another turn around at College Avenue to return back down King George Street for one last time. We were in the final stretch and finally made it to mile 12, and then turned left to run the last mile back into the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium parking lot and to the finish line, where a heat sheet and our finisher's medal awaited us. I finished in 2:14:02, and the weather had warmed up... to 34 degrees.
We were directed to head to the smaller "Runner's Village" that was set up for us to pick up our finishers' premium - a quarter-zip Dri-Fit jersey - and post-race bananas, bagels, and homemade country tomato soup! But that wasn't all... we were given an after party that had a live cover band, several beers (and root beer and hard cider) on tap, and... OYSTERS, both grilled and on the half shell, free for all finishers. I stuck around as long as I could to partake in this after-party, of course got my headstand photo taken in front of the Blue Angels plane on display outside of the stadium, before getting back on the road again for the two hour drive up to Philadelphia to pick up my bib for my second half of the weekend.
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Half number 10 and state number 8 completed! And it was a cold one! |
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This after party is going to be hard to beat. Free oysters? Yes, please! |
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