DC Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon

This would be my second Rock 'n Roll event in the calendar year and would earn me my first Heavy Medal from the Competitor Group. I'm signed up for two more of their half marathons, Philly in September and San Antonio in November. I had some company with me this race as four other people from the West Philly Runners were also doing the half-marathon. Dan and Mike were doing the full-marathon, while Julia, Casey and myself were doing the half-marathon. The race was scheduled for St. Patrick's Day, March 17th.

We left Philadelphia at 1PM on Friday to get down to DC before the Expo ended. Since this was a Saturday race, the Expo was closing on Friday night. Dan, Julia and Casey rode down with me and they stayed with one of Julia's friends. I just got a room in Crystal City by Reagan Airport as the rooms were pretty inexpensive in that area. We made it to the DC Armory where the Expo was being held and it was a zoo. The traffic outside was crawling along and we weren't totally sure on where to park. Of course, we parked where there were a bunch of other cars, and got a ticket because we weren't supposed to park there. We were in and out of the Expo quickly as we all wanted to get something to eat and get settled where we were staying.

I got down to my hotel and checked-in without any problems. I planned to meet with my friend Shane for dinner. Shane had recently moved from LA to DC for a job. His wife and children are still in LA but will be moving out soon. Shane and I grabbed some dinner in Alexandria and he offered to give me a ride to the race the next morning. After a quick dinner and agonizing over some of my NCAA tournament picks, I settled in for the evening at my hotel room.

Shane picked me up early Saturday morning and we actually got to the race course pretty early. I had plenty of time to drop off my stuff at the check-in and head out to my corral without rushing. My corral was the third one to start but I had to walk past the last 22 corrals which was a pretty long walk. Right on cue as I got there, Dan showed up and we hung out in the corral waiting for the race to start. We looked for Mike as he was supposed to be in our corral too but we didn't see him. The race got off to a good start. Dan and I didn't run together since he wanted to conserve energy for the full-marathon and I was trying for my elusive 1:45 goal. The race was very picturesque running through some of the quaint neighborhoods in DC, near the Capitol, along the National Mall and Washington Monument. One thing that I wasn't quite prepared for were some of the hills that were on the course. I had thought DC was flat but there were a couple of challenging hills on the course. I ran with the 1:45 pace group for most of the race but eventually lost them on one of the bigger hills around Dupont Circle.

My pace was really good this race and I was managing 8:00 minute miles for most of the race. I walked through the water station at Mile 11 and my right knee was bugging me a little bit so I took another short walk around mile 12. I was heading toward the Finish and of course, the race had to end at the top of a hill which slowed me down a little. I got through the hill and finished it off in a time of 1:46:15. I missed my goal again but I ran a pretty complete race. Opposite of the St. Petersburg race, the weather was warming up quickly as the race went on. I was glad that I only did the half-marathon as it was sunny and warming quickly for the people doing the marathon. Dan decided to drop down and finish the half-marathon and Casey finished just behind me. We all met in the Family area at the letter W for West Philly Runners. Mike did finish the full marathon in a time of 3:29, the guy is a running machine. 

After we all gathered and headed back to clean up. We spent the rest of the afternoon having some beers and celebrating a gorgeous St. Patrick's Day out on the town in DC. I spent one more night at the hotel in DC and we all drove back to Philadelphia on Sunday morning.