Happy Monday everyone!  Today was a little better than the typical Monday because I was still feeling my runners high from this weekend’s Crawlin’ Crab festivities!  I will recap the half marathon itself in another post, but for today, I’ll focus on the rest of the weekend.

FRIDAY

Sam and I both had to work on Friday morning, but were on the road by 1:30 Friday afternoon.  After a quick stop at the Arby’s drive-thru for a late lunch, we were on our way.  We hit a little bit of traffic, but got to our hotel and were all checked in by 5:00.  We headed over to the expo in the convention center, which was only a 5 minute walk.  The expo was the perfect size and we went at the perfect time.  No lines at all!  We picked up our bibs, shirts, and bags.  J&A races was having a photo scavenger hunt over the weekend and by now you should know how competitive Sam and I are.  Game on!  We took a few pics at the expo that weren’t on the list, and also a few that were, such as the crab picture below 🙂

We continued over to the merchandise area of the expo, but didn’t really see too much we were interested in.  We did receive some free oval stickers (5k, 13.1, and 16.2 Crawlin Crab sticker).  Score!

We headed back to the hotel and then decided to head to Chili’s for dinner.

Yum!  After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and took some more crab pictures in the lobby 🙂

I risked certain death by standing in the spinning chair of evil to take a picture of my “Flat Kim” for the next day’s 5k.  Don’t you like my arm warmers (cut up dress socks)?

I went to bed by 10:00 or so to get a good nights rest before the 5k.  I only woke up twice throughout the night and was able to fall right back to sleep.

SATURDAY

We set our alarms for 6:00 on Saturday morning.  Sam was bright eyed and bushy tailed almost immediately and all I wanted to do was go back to bed.  I am NOT a morning person.  Sometimes I am a little more enthusiastic on race mornings, but today was not one of those days.  I finally got up around 6:20 and started getting myself together.  The hotel was providing a “grab & go” breakfast for Crawlin’ Crab guests that started at 7:00.  I ate 1/2 a bagel and a banana (I think) for breakfast.  Around 7:25, we walked over to the race start.  Luckily, they were letting people hang out at the Convention Center before the race.  It was a little chilly out, so it was great to have a place to hang out at and a REAL bathroom to use before the start of the race.  Of course, we also took some more photos.

With about 10 minutes till the race, we headed outside to check our bag (with our jackets for after the race) and found our spots in Corral 2.

After the National Anthem played, we were off!  We had decided to try to run about a 10:30 pace.  We definitely didn’t want to push it and wanted to save some for the half marathon.  We had decided we would take it slow and take some more photos along the course for the scavenger hunt.

Our first mile was a little fast, but we felt good.  We stopped around .5 mile to take a picture with the live band.  We finished our first mile in 10:10.

During our 2nd mile, we stopped to take photos with the marching band and at the water stop.  We also took a photo with a very tall volunteer.  Our 2nd mile came in at 10:49.

During our 3rd mile, we didn’t have any scavenger hunt photos left to take so we ran it at a pretty good pace (9:42).  It was a little fast but we were almost done and we were feeling good so why not?!?  We saw the finish line and sprinted the last .14 mile at a pace of 8:41 min/mile.  When we saw the finish line photos, I thought they were hilarious!  Sam and I were totally in sync.  Only I think I look silly and she looks graceful 😉

And just like that, we were crossing the finish line.

We collected our finishers medal, water, snacks, and our bonus finishers item, which was a glass Crawlin’ Crab mug.  We had our hands pretty full, so we decided to walk back to the hotel and drop off some of our stuff before heading to the Finishers Festival.

J&A puts on a really nice Finishers Festival.  They provided us with Corn and Crab Chowder in a bread boule, along with 2 free beers!  Sam and I chose a pumpkin beer.  To be honest, we weren’t in love with it and we could only handle 1 that early in the morning, but I was still very pleased!

After listening to the live band for a while, he headed over to the hula hoop station.  Yes, they had a hula hoop station.  What a great way to loosen the hips after a run.  Count me in!!  I love hula hooping.  I tried to hula hoop while drinking my beer, but I’m just not that talented.  Sam said she didn’t know how to hula hoop, but was ecstatic when she realized she could.  And she was really good at it.  We had so much fun!!

They had 3 giant chalk boards set up for runners to write on.  One was for PR’s, one was for you to write who inspired you, and one was to write your next goal.  I thought that was a nice touch and have never seen it before at other races.

They also had a giant jenga game set up, along with corn hole, which I am very surprised that Sam and I did not get involved in.  Even without corn hole, we had a blast at the festival.

 

Around 11:00, we decided to head back to the hotel.  We found a particular pedestrian cross walk button to be very amusing; you basically had to walk through the flower bed to get to it.  Maybe it was the beer, but we found it extremely funny and I had to take a picture.

We headed back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit.  We finally decided to get ourselves together and go out for lunch (Panera Bread), followed by a trip to a cupcake store for some cupcakes to take back to the room.

The cupcake store was at an outdoor mall, but we just didn’t have the energy to go shopping.  We stopped in JC Penney real quick and then headed out.  We made a quick couple of grocery store stops for our morning yogurt and headed back to the room.  We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing.  I brought my laptop with me so Sam could grab some of my current music to add to her playlist.  Later in the evening, we went to Olive Garden for dinner (carbs!) and then came back to the room.  I made my “flat Kim” for the half marathon the next day and then went to bed.

Will Kim set a new half marathon PR?  Will Sam set a new half marathon PR?  Will they chose a different beer at the finishers festival?  What will the bonus finishers item be?  Stay tuned for Part 2 of my weekend recap to find out.