It was great to be back in Virginia Beach! I had my eye on these races for a while and was so tempted to do one of the challenges, but I ending up deciding not to do it. I kicked off the start of the race season with the Rock ‘N’ Roll DC Half Marathon just the weekend prior. I am making it a goal this year to not over do anything and at least TRY to not get injured (keyword try!). I still have the rest of the year to race, but I just want to do it all!! (urgh!!)

Since my half marathon went very well I decided to do the 8k (despite how much I wanted to do the half!). Traffic was horrendous that weekend and took me around 5 hours to get down there after work! I was very thankful that my friend was able to pick up my race packet for me (I don’t think I could have handled any more driving).  I arrived at the oceanfront around 6:30am and surprisingly did not hit any traffic. I lucked out with parking and was able to park in the deck right next to the starting line. I did not have any pins to put my bib on and I frantically walked around and found some. I had some time to kill so I hung around King Neptune and probably saw the best sunrise over the ocean that morning. It could not have been a more perfect sunrise to start the day!

After the sunrise, I went back up to the top of the parking garage where I parked to stretch and warm up. I did not even bother doing bag check because it was out of the way.

I could see everything from the top of the garage and I watched as a sea of green started filling up the streets.

 I started in Corral 2.

Loved how there was absolutely no elevation for this race! Virginia Beach is pretty dag on flat! The only thing I really struggled with during this race was running against the wind. It was VERY windy that morning and I really felt like I could have been blown away. I groaned a few times running against the wind, but I powered through it!

I started off a little fast for this race. I scaled back a little bit remembering the pain I was in the last time when I ran the Rock ‘N’ Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon. I increased my speed as I felt fit and listened to my body.

The famous Shamrock Marathon sandcastle.

Post race they had a nice tent out on the beach. I walked over to the side and stretched before getting in line for stew! I didn’t stay very long. The tent started filling up rather quickly. I ran this race in shorts and was absolutely freezing after, so I ran back to my car to put on more clothes. I decided to visit the expo after since I was unable to go the day before. I got a couple freebies and bought a nice long sleeve running shirt.

Results wise, I placed 9th out of 221 other females aged 20- 24 in my division. Which is in the top 4%! Among females I placed 112 out of 5082 which is in the top 2%! It is nice knowing that all my hard work is actually paying off. Not too shabby for signing up the week of!