Here are some details of the race: Their packet pickup was organized, they had our names registered and had our right size shirts, however the information on the web said we'd get a goody bag and none of us did. I got a pair of socks, but not a bag of other stuff. The shirts for the children were different than the shirts for the other races. I liked both. As much as I loved the shirts, I wished they said half marathon on them.
The day of the race was good, we all loaded a bus to be taken 8.5 miles out of town and that bus showed up early and all the half marathoners took off on time, as the volunteers said would happen. The race started within a few minutes of when it said it would.
The first part of the race was done on a chip seal type of stuff on a trail, that was easier to run on than cement. I liked this, but didn't like how I had to stop twice to get small rocks out of my shoe. There weren't enough water stops so I was grateful that I had carried water on my hip.
After the 7 mile trail we were on the road that lead to the lake, we ran in 1.5 miles to the lake, by this time the weather was getting nice and hot and we needed more water stops. Then we turned right to run around the lake and then through a trail by the lake then through the middle of the lake on a pathway, it was a pretty and a scenic run. However one part of the run was on this road that was slanted badly, so badly that you were running crooked for about 1 mile, that I think hurt my knee and as a result that knee hurt for all day and got worse through the run. I think it tightened my IT band on that side of my body. It was bad news. I still hurt today. I've been icing a lot.
The finishing medal was very plain. At first I was disappointed when I saw it. I asked at packet pickup if they happened to have the finishing medals there and they pulled them out. It was a plain blue cheapish ribbon with this cheapish plain silverish metal at the bottom of the ribbon, carved in the medal was something that looked like a box with other lines. I would have not liked it at all UNTIL the lady who was showing me the medal got all excited and said, "We had this specially carved to show the Spillway and falls" She was overjoyed about the carving that it made the medal special at that point. Just hearing her joy about how she liked the medal so much and how much it meant to those that designed it, made it special. The back of the medal just has a sticker with the date, the name of the race and it says half marathon. I would say it's my plainest medal that I have ever received, but it does mean something since it is special to those who designed it.
There was a pasta dinner the night before and that was delicious (free to registered runners) so we all ate for free. The children all seemed to enjoy the food, even Brenden who can't stand pasta really liked the pasta dinner. I was glad to have a night that I didn't have to make dinner. During the race I ran next to a man named Bob from North Carolina. He is the same age as my Dad and served in Vietnam the same time as my father did. We talked a lot and that helped the miles go by quickly.
After the race there was a pancake breakfast that was really good and it was free to runners.
I forgot to get a granola bar or banana after, just completely skipped that table. I was so focused on finding ice for my knee that was hurting so bad and getting it wrapped up that I forgot to get post race food.
Jason got a new personal record by 4 minutes on the 10k and was happy, but then placed 4th in his age group, so he was bummed that getting a 56 minute 10k didn't earn him 3rd place, but oh well he did finish better than he ever had before.
Alyssa and Brenden did well on their 5K, but Alyssa wore the wrong socks and blistered pretty bad, she wore some thin socks that she shouldn’t have worn at all. Brenden's age group was huge and he didn't do as well as he had hoped. I'm hoping to see official results soon so I can post them here. Below are pictures to enjoy:
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| Hampton is a very rural town and a long drive from Iowa City. We were traveling at a great speed until 20 minutes before we arrived and got behind this massive truck. Finally it turned and I snapped the picture for rememberance of our 30 m.p.h. drive for what seemed like forever. |
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| Scott posing with the bear at the hotel. |
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| A funny name for a diner. If you need to see the picture bigger then click on it. |
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| My race number. Take out the zero and you have my 13! |
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| A picture taken early in the morning before the half marathon started. Alyssa was super grumpy and would not be in our picture. |
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| Alyssa running in for her 5K finish. |
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| Scott getting ready to run his 1k race. He is thrilled, can you tell? |
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| Scott in his race. |
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| Me running in for the finish. I felt pretty good except for some IT band tightness in the right knee. The man in the green shirt behind me is Bob from North Carolina. We ran together for almost the entire race. |
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| My favorite part about this picture is that they are leaning on each other while sleeping. They had just been saying, "don't touch me, don't lean on me" then they fall asleep. AWESOME |
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