My first Half Marathon for the 2017 year and probably one of the coldest half marathons I’ve ever run! This was my second time running the Rock n’ Roll DC Half Marathon and I enjoyed last year’s race so I came back again this year!

Packet Pick up was located at the same location at the DC Armory. I did not stay very long and briefly walked through everywhere. I was eager to get back home to make sure I had enough sleep before the race. I did end up buying a running headband to cover my ears since it was going to be so cold out.

 

We had clear sky’s the morning of the race, but it was absolutely freezing out there that it still felt like winter! I was able to run this race last year in shorts, but not for this year’s race.

The start time for the race got pushed back to 8:30am because of the frigid temperatures.

I kept jumping around (as I always do!) to keep my body warm before the race.

I was a little worried for this race, just because I had not run this distance in a while. I usually run shorter distances in the winter time and hate running anything more than 5 miles on a treadmill.

At 8:30am the race began and we were off. As I was running I recognized the course from last year’s race and even the same brutal hill midway through the race. It felt like it was not so long ago that I was just doing this race, but time sure does fly by!

My goal for this race was to try to at least beat my time from last year’s race of 1:55, but I was not sure how realistic this would be given my side problems.

During the race I started to warm up so I took off my gloves and shoved them in my bra. I even had to pull my shirt up some to let some of the heat out. I continued to run with no problems at all and pressed on to the finish!

When I finished the race I was so excited to be done and was happy to have finished it in under 2 hours!

As soon as I stopped running my body got so cold that I had to bundle back up. Crazy how fast the body cools down so quick!

Although I did not make my goal of beating last year’s time, (I was shy just 3 minutes!) I still had a good race! I still made it within the top 18% of females!

The medal came out pretty cool and loved the design of the DC Monuments!