Thursday, June 19, 2014

Running Wild on Pensacola Beach April 13, 2014

 The gorgeous morning sunrises are the highlight of getting up at 4am for a half marathon.  This one was a little over an hour away from my house on Pensacola Beach.  This was my first time on Pensacola Beach that week.  I went camping at Fort Pickens a few days later.

It was cold and windy at the start.  I traded photography skills with another person to get a photo of me at the beach.  This was taken just before the boardwalk area got packed with runners.

So many runners!  This year was the particular race's 5th year and many of the runners participated all 5 years.  That's some commitment.

Sand dunes and sea oats.  #Floridalife

I always start at the back of the race line because I'm a slow runner.  And I love to get shots like this.  :)

Took a short detour to walk closer to the beach.  The waves were 3-4 feet higher a few days later.  We had a couple really bad storms roll in over the days immediately after the race.  Probably 20" of rain that week.  It was rough.

Selfie on the same bridge!

The sun is already getting hot.  Most of the course was through the town, but we went towards government land for a bit too.  That was boring and I didn't take any photos of that section.

Still looking fresh at Mile 3!

All the water stops were great.  The volunteers were having as much fun as the runners.

Runners leave a trail of debris in their wake.  Look at all those water cups.

Still hanging tough at mile 11.

This leased lot could be the site of your dream home.  This is on the bay side of the island.

You could choose to put a really weird water tower-esque house on your lot.  This thing is weird.

SO CLOSE!

I just have to make it to the beach ball in the distance.  (That's the water tower for the island btw.)  I just realized that one of the people in this picture is the prancer I was running near for a while.  (S)he must have passed me while I was grabbing a handful of gummi bears.

I finished the race.  Forgot to take a photo of myself in the process.  I walked the half mile to my car to change my clothes and decided I didn't want to hang around the parking lot, jump in the gulf, or walk back towards the finish line.  I headed to steak n shake instead.

I happened to spot this crew setting up for a recording of America Grilled for the Travel Channel.  I thought it was the setup for a wedding at first.  We have a lot of destination weddings around here.

My last name is smack in the middle of the alphabet and I always end up with a middle number.  I wish I could have 2.
 
This is the back of the bar key finisher's medal.

Here's the swag through my April half marathon.  I have quite the collection forming.  My favorite medal so far is the Blue Angels Rock 'N Fly one.

I finished this race in 2:49, if I remember correctly.  It was obscenely hot, my knee was aching, and I could not stay hydrated.  I had a solid pace of ~11:20 /mile through mile 6 and then the sun came out.  I use runkeeper to track my runs and runkeeper is consistently unreliable.  I'm thinking about using Map My Run for my next run.  Runkeeper tells me I ran nearly 15 miles in 3:13:50, which I know is wrong.  (Well, the time is correctish because I forgot to turn runkeeper off after I crossed the finish.)

Hopefully I'll have some sewing FO photos soon.  It's too bright out in the morning to get good photos!

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