St Augustine Half Marathon



The 2nd Annual St Augustine Half Marathon was a weekend long event with a distance for everyone in the family, including a 5k and 10k on Saturday and the Half Marathon on Sunday. Last year they had a full marathon, but for some unannounced reason the full was dropped. I had heard there were over a thousand runners, but results posted 713 half marathoners with the women out numbering the men once again! =)
The day started with an early 330am wake up. Start time was set for 6am, but living about 40 minutes outside of town, I opted for the race day packet pick up at 430a. Being up this early, I settled on a Mojo bar and banana for breakfast on the go.

Arriving so early, parking was a breeze. No pun intended…it was a wickedly windy day! 20+mph winds with even harder gusts! Most everyone hung out in the parking garage until line up time because of it. The temperature was perfect for running…40s-50s. Overcast skies kept us wondering if we would have rain, but we were lucky and it stayed dry.

Packet Pick Up, the Starting line, and the After Party was all right at St Francis Field next to the garage. The Visitors Center on the other side of the garage had ‘Real’ bathrooms, and there were porta potties on the field, so there was really no waiting in line. (Score!)

I placed myself with the 11minute pacer. My goal was to complete my 2nd race without stopping (besides the water stations to gulp some energy).

The course was really well planned out. I didn’t really pay much attention to the map ahead of time (lets be honest, I never really do. I guess that’s the part of me that likes surprises!) Start and Finish lines were not too far from each other and there was only 1 small section of the course that was repeated.

We started before sunrise which caused for some beautiful scenery of the Christmas lights in Historic St Augustine! After we crossed over the Bridge of Lions (a small flat bridge), you could also see the light from the Lighthouse. It was a real beauty and we got up close and personal with it twice during the race.


The first several miles felt real comfortable. There wasn’t much crowding, despite all the roads still being open to traffic (hence no Ipods allowed). Our group was small with one other girl and a guy. This was the first time I chose to go with a pace group, not knowing if it was going to be a run/walk pace, or pure run. I soon found out it was pure run, and she was actually pacing about 10:30 because her theory was we would slow down at the bridge. What? Bridge? What kind of bridge? Oh I soon learned!


The Bridge was located at the halfway point. It was up and over and then turn around and up and over again! The size wasn’t too intimidating (it was no Savannah Bridge, lets put it that way! -the toughest bridge run in the South-Which I will tackle 3x next week!) But boy were those winds howling!! We thought the wind was bad on the road, but it sure did it make it difficult to run on the bridge! Our pacer was holding a pretty big Pace Sign and was having a hard time controlling it during the gusts on the road. Once we hit that bridge, she practically turned into a kite! It was cold, Im not going to lie and most of your energy was spent trying to run ‘straight’ instead of ‘sideways’!!



On the way back we had a bit of a scenic area as we went on some sort of trail through the thick trees and then were able to run along the coast. Was beautiful, but found ourselves battling the wind head on again!



There weren’t a lot of spectators on the sidelines for most of the race. So my motivation was definitely coming from the pace group. With no music to sidetract me, it was hard to tune out the negative self talk!


The water stations were properly stocked and even a few of the volunteers dressed up in costume to cheer us on. My favorite was the Peanut team!



About Mile 11 I could feel myself really pulling back from the Pacer. For some reason the water stations were now spaced unevenly and I was finding myself needing fluid or energy. I had taken 1 Gu and a couple Gatorade shots, but I could tell my body needed more food. Was probably from the guy at the beginning of the race yelling he wanted bacon! (YES!)


I felt like we were doing a slightly faster pace and so my brain took over and my legs stopped. I began to ‘wog’. So disappointed, I made sure my breaks were only about 10-20seconds. But they were often for about all of Mile 12.






We were finally hitting the Bridge of Lions again for our final stretch and I was quickly catching back up to the Pacer. The other girl had pulled ahead. I had lost track of the guy that was with us most of the race. I passed the pacer, and then passed the other girl and turned the corner to sprint in the final stretch trying to make up time, when BAM! Hit in the face with the hard winds again!! The wind had taken everything out of me, but I pushed through the last few yards as I remembered I had a special someone waiting for me at the finish line!... I could get used to this! =)


All in all I finished at the same time as my PR (the only race I have truely completed all 13 without wogging!) Although I am disappointed I gave in to negative talk at only a mile or so out, I am happy with the end result. Finishing the same time despite walking, means I have increased my overall speed over the year and I will take that! =)






Pros

-Good scenic course
-Pretty flat and a slight bridge challenge (would be a lot easier w/o the winds!)
-Easy access from parking to start
-Nice medal
-They had ‘Expo’ at the finish line too for those that did same day packet pick up
-Small, hometown feel
-Free beer at the After Party area
-Can easily make into a weekend family vacaiton

Cons

-Super early start time
-Not much crowd support-probably because this is still a new race
-Only water at the finish line, had to walk back to the start area to get any kind of refuel, food, beer
-We were warned that the garage would be charging $10, but no one ever collected money from me, so not sure.
-No local photographers, hence arm and a leg for any professional photo