Oddyssey Half Marathon Race Recap

This morning I ran the Oddyssey Half Marathon..an odd race it was!

I decided to run this race because it was pretty much right in my backyard. I have traveled to New York many times for races, Orlando for a Half this past year, and I will be flying out to Chicago for my first marathon this fall, so how could I NOT run a half a few little miles from my apartment. I also wanted to complete 6 half marathons in my past year of running, and this was my deadline!

I was excited that my new blog friends Melissa and Lauren were running the race too. I heart running buddies.

This was the inaugural Oddyssey Half Marathon, so this morning they were still working out some kinks. The race was scheduled to start at 7:00 am, which I was excited about because we would beat the heat, but when I got there, I found out they pushed it back to 7:30 am because they were still getting things set up. I could have used that extra 30 minutes of sleep!

 

The Oddyssey Half website urged people to dress up in crazy outfits for the run. I would say there were about a little less than half of the runners that dressed up. I contemplated wearing my Rainbow Brite Halloween outfit, but I didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good costume!  It was entertaining to see lots of people dressed up, but I don’t know how some of then ran 13 miles in costumes!

 

At 7:30 we were off! Lauren, Melissa and I started the race together, it was fun to have them to chat with. It was threatening rain some of the morning, but most of the race was run in cooler weather with some clouds which was perfect!

  

Fiance was a fabulous photographer/Superfan and got lots of great pictures of the race!

 

There were only about 800 runners in this Half, so it was pretty small, which is very different from every other half I have run. The start was a tad crowded, but nothing like I am used to dealing with. It was  a nice way to start out the race.

I feel like my outfit made it really easy to see me. Most people weren’t wearing head to toe teal with a neon yellow hat!

These pictures were taking about the first half a mile or so. Super early in the race!

   

Can we take a moment and give a shout out to this guy. He ran the entire race, 13.1 miles juggling! How crazy is that?!

Before we even hit the first mile marker, everyone spread out and we had lots of space. It’s so much easier to run with space!

   

We made a little loop and headed back to fiancé around mile 2. Can you spot me in my bright colored outfit??

 

The three of us were still going strong !

I love this picture because fiancé took a picture of his hand waving to me while I ran by! Haha.

   

We made ANOTHER loop in that same general area and passed fiancé once more a little before mile 3. At this point it started to get a little hot so I took off my shirt and threw it to fiancé.

  

We went down a big hill and made our way onto West River Drive.

(a few blurry pictures from fiance! Better than nothing!)

 

I am pretty familiar with this leg of the race. I run this part of the Kelly Drive loop fairly frequently.

 

This was also the same last mile of the Philadelphia Half Marathon.

 

At the turnaround point at mile 6, I hit a bit of a wall. I took a Gu a half a mile beforehand and it started to give me massive stitches in my side. I told the girls to go ahead of me and I would catch up.

It was awesome to run with the ladies for the first half of the race, it made  the time fly by, but then I was all by myself!

I got to see fiance around mile 7 and I was struggling! Seeing him made me feel better and we each took pictures of each other, playing paparazzi!

 

I stopped for a few seconds, filled up my water bottle and didn’t want to keep running. I was tired and not into it and was now going to be running the rest of the race alone.

 

I also didn’t bring my ipod with me which turned out to be an epic FAIL. I couldn’t find my shuffle in the morning and It was threatening rain so I didn’t want to ruin my pod.  I also  figured I would be chatting it up with the girls the whole time so I wouldn’t need it, but I was very wrong!

Boo to running alone with no tunes! Thumbs down!

So I was running deaf (without tunes) and partially blind because my Garmin didn’t sync up properly when the race started late and it only started tracking my miles about 4 minutes behind.

I was all sorts of messed up for this race!

The second half of the marathon were mentally and emotionally tough. I was alone and bored. The distanced between people running grew larger and lonelier.

At one point I saw some baby geese….Yes, I was bored.

After a while I saw Lauren on the other side of the road, so I knew the turnaround point was close! It was her first Half and she was killin’ it!

 

Did I mention that I HATE races where you run up one side of the road and then back the other side? Hate it! It’s just so boring, and depressing when you see all the superfast people ahead of you and you still have a ways to go!

It’s also not very exciting when you see sad little signs like these telling you to turn around. Blah.

This turnaround point was right at Falls Bridge which is right across the ways from where I live. I contemplated for a second about heading home, but I that’s something I would never actually do. I wanted to finish the race, I was just bored and not into it.

 

The turnaround point was at mile 10 so I knew we didn’t have very far left to go. This leg of the race was hard for me mentally. I started writing this blog post in my head to pass the time!

 

I was originally excited for this race because they promised obstacles and distractions but there really wasn’t anything like I expected. At one point there were some people throwing water balloons, which was kind of cool.

There were only 2 diversions – one was Jenga, which I didn’t understand how that worked – and the other was crawling through these tunnels.

 

I don’t know about you but after running 10+ miles I don’t want to get on my hands and knees and crawl through something like that.

 

Juggler man was still rockin’ and rollin’

 

Then the clouds parted and I hit mile 12. The last mile or so was the worse mile of the entire race, and there was one big reason for that –

The Hill from Hell. 

Seriously, who puts a hill on the last mile of a half marathon? The people who picked out the course were trying to kill us, I’m sure.

Fiance caught me in all my last mile glory.

 

At this moment, I hated my life.

 

There was a quarter mile left in the race and I wanted to stop and crawl up the hill.

One word – Pain.

   

In the end, I made it to the top of the hill and finished the race. This was the first half marathon that I finished in a little over 2 hours. From the beginning I wasn’t trying to break any records, I have proved my running abilities was just running this race for fun.

I am not sure of my official time, but I believe I ran around 9:30 or so pace, which I am pretty happy with.

I caught up with Melissa and Lauren at the finish line. Both ladies did awesome! I was so proud of my blogger friends.

The one thing I really liked about this race was that even though we didn’t get Finishers medals, which we all know I LOVE – we got Finisher’s Pint Glasses! Woohoo!

 

We will definitely be putting these pint glasses to good use! 

 

I also have to give a massive shout out to fiance! He was seriously a SUPER FAN today! He got up at 6:00 am to see me race and be the photographer for the blog! Love him! XO!

 

I got home and took a few more half marathon victory pictures.

I was smiling for the camera, but was really BEAT!

 

All I wanted to do was to lay on the ground and pass out.

Jackson gave me victory kisses to make me feel better.

 

There is nothing like puppy slobber after a race!

 

I am off to put something awesome in my finisher’s glass!

I am happy to add another finished race to my collection!