Columbus Half Marathon!

This morning I got up early, had breakfast, and braved the marathon traffic to go run 13.1 miles with 12,000 of my closest friends (okay, that's not exactly true... some of them were running 26.2 miles). Here's the course map:

Adrienne is on an away rotation in Cleveland this month and had to work today, so I was on my own for the race. That's okay, because running ridiculously long distances seems to make everyone good friends. I talked to a girl running her first half before the race, chatted with some random people while running, and ran with a couple of Marines for a mile or so before they stopped for a bathroom break (they were running the whole marathon, so it's really not that impressive that I was keeping pace with them).

Overall, it was a really good race, although really cold at the beginning (my fingers were so cold, I couldn't bend them for the first two miles). I ended up breaking the two-hour mark (yay!) with a time of 1:56:17. Not my fastest ever, but it was only the second time I came in before two hours, so I'm happy. It was about an 8:47/mile pace.

Here's my medal.

And, of course, since I live right on the full marathon course, I had to be creative in driving back. Here was my route to and from the parking garage (C is my apartment):

I got to drive along High St. to get to the parking garage, but it was closed when I was headed home, so I had to get creative to drive back. I was just impressed with myself that I found an alternative route without the help of my GPS. I guess after living in Columbus for more than three years, I finally know my way around (somewhat).