I ran the GO! St. Louis Half Marathon this past weekend, and joined the “Sub 2 Hour” club. I finished with a time of 1:58:12—13 minutes faster than my first half marathon last fall. My goal was to finish within 2 hours, so I was pleased to finish two minutes better. I ended up placing 137th out of roughly 900 ladies in my division (F25-29), and finisher 1782 out of 7835 half marathon runners.
But holy cow, I am so much more sore after this half marathon than I was with my first one, which makes sense because there were so many more hills with this one. My knees hurt after the last one, and this time it’s my quads. I’ve heard that the GO! race was on the more difficult side, and I can certainly vouch for that. The Holy Hill part of the race wasn’t fun, but that’s not what got me—it was the last hill between mile 11 and 12 that did.
Overall it was a challenging, but fun race to do. And despite the hills, I did like this course much better than Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon last fall. The scenery was much better to look at, and there wasn’t a turn every other block. I also felt like there were more people out on the streets cheering on the runners—rather than in front yards staring and complaining that they couldn’t get out of their driveway to make it to church on time.
Having three other friends also running the same race made it more enjoyable, though we finish at three different times. I’m glad I brought another shirt to change into because it got warm extremely quickly that morning. I certainly wasn’t expecting it. Oh, and my face got sunburnt. Pretty sweet, right?
I haven’t decided if I will do this one again next spring or not. I haven’t been able to do the half marathon I’ve really been wanting to run for the last couple of years due to schedule conflicts, and I won’t be able to again this fall, but hopefully the one following. I may give the Rock ‘n’ Roll another chance, or maybe I’ll go do one in a different city. Now that would be fun…
—m.
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