Quick Race Catchup

Holy cow.  I looked over my race spreadsheet (I use it to keep track of finishing times, and when and where I've raced) and there are SO many I haven't talked about!  At this point, it's been so long I really don't remember much.  I'm just going to talk about the major things I remember.

Baltimore Running Festival Half
My first half marathon.  The hills.  Goodness!  The hills.  They were plentiful and painful.  Afterwards I could hardly walk.  My husband and I had tickets to see Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec) that evening, and I hobbled the whole way from the car to the gym to watch him.  (Totally worth it.)  The whole race experience itself was wonderful.  It was my first big expo, and it was great.  So many vendors, so little time!  The race was great.  The crowd support is like nothing else.  Anybody who's run the longer distance races in the festival knows what I'm talking about.  The Eye of the Tiger dancers (people in tiger costumes dancing to Eye of the Tiger for the entire race), the Natty Boh (people offered cups of it which I declined), the gummy bears and candy corn (germaphobe so I declined), people playing a "Good Morning, Baltimore" remix from Hairspray, and the fantastic feeling of running through the gates of Camden Yards to the finish line.  I think this picture says it all...

Okay, I was also super psyched to see my parents and husband near the finish line.
Despite the post-race pain and running this with IT Band Syndrome...I would totally do it again.  I love my newly adopted city.  I loved being able to see parts of the city that I hadn't seen yet and wouldn't dare run on a normal day.  

Columbia Turkey Chase 10k 2013
This race was so. incredibly.  cold.  The race had wind chill in the single digits.  They handed out the aluminum blankets before the race because people were jumping around trying to stay warm.  I was still injured from the Baltimore Half at this point (and had been during the MCM 10k too) but I had signed up for it so I had to do it.  It was not my greatest time, but I was determined to do it again in 2014 since I knew the time would be better.  The post-race food was great.  It was the usual bananas, bagels and water, but they also had a chili cook-off from local restaurants.  I don't usually go for something hearty after a race, but the warmth of the chili was greatly appreciated.

Pilgrim Run Kansas City 2013
My family has a tradition of running a race together on (or around) Thanksgiving.  We like it as a way of burning some calories and spending time doing something healthy before eating a huge meal.  This year we ran it in Kansas City since we were there to visit my Missouri family (an aunt, uncle, couple cousins and Grandmother.)  It was a lot of fun.  I was still injured, but the race was great and I finished behind my brother-in-law who finished third in his age group!  The scenery was great since there were lots of gorgeous houses and the race started and ended downhill.  (The middle was uphill, but not horrible.)

I don't want to overload each post with races, so I'll add more in my next post until I'm all caught up :)