MY QUEST TO 50- WASHINGTON DC

MY QUEST TO 50

March 17, 2012

Rock and Roll Half Marathon 13.1 Miles

Washington, DC

I completed my second half marathon for 2012, and completed another half marathon my 8^th since I started running in 2009.

DAY BEFORE THE RACE

Friday the day before the race was quite an adventure I was scheduled to take a bus from Port Authority at 11:30am and arrived in DC around 4:00pm didn’t go quite as planned. The bus got as far as 2 blocks before it broke down and we waited almost 2 hrs to transfer to another bus which made my arrival time at DC 6:30pm. When I arrived to DC had to reschedule dinner for 9pm because we wouldn’t have made it to our 7:15 reservations and headed straight to the race expo where we picked up our race packets, they were already packing up and ready to shut down.

At Race Expo

HOTEL

Subway Mayhem on Race Day

Waiting for the Metro



We leave the expo and take the Metro which is DC’s transit system which was a bit confusing you have to buy a fare card and put it through the machine but as you exit the station you have to use your card again to exit. We arrive at the lovely Mayflower Renaissance hotel which my friend had booked because it was the closet to the start of the race but not that close because we had to take the metro to get to the race.

We then head to dinner to Dupont Italian Kitchen to carb load the food was really good and did the job we headed back to the hotel to prep for the race the next morning.

RACE DAY

The race was scheduled to start at 8:00 we leave the hotel around 6:30 or so to take the Metro to RFK Stadium where the race starts. The train was so congested with runners that they shut the train system down and kicked everyone off the train, many of us were just stranded and had no way of getting to the race, the taxi’s weren’t taking anyone because the streets were closed and walking was just too far. The only thing to do was just wait until we were able to fit in the train and wait for it to continue to our destination. I don’t think the city was prepared for this and the estimated 21,000 runners.

 Congrats Alex and Jose!!! 



We get to the stadium and rush to check our bags, I think we crossed the start line 40mins after the race officially started and with the late starters which some were walkers which was very difficult to run through because so many people were walking in front of you so for the first 2-3miles I was zig zagging through people until I finally found my stride and was comfortable with my pace and enough space around me. I found this race a bit difficult because of the humidity was about 90% but made sure I stayed hydrated but felt my hands swelling up. The first half was pretty good until we reached the first elevation after mile 5 and was pretty constant the hills up till the 12^th mile. Overall I did pretty well considering the hills were bothering me a bit but was happy to have complete another half marathon.

POST RACE & DAY AFTER

Fueled up after the race relaxed a bit and headed back to the hotel to change and had some empanadas, you should have seen the size of these things I forgot to take a picture but they were very good. We headed to the National Mall which is what they call the area with all the monuments. Some things we were able to see was the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial and we passed by the Potomac River to see the Cherry Blossoms in bloom after that we were a bit tired and my feet kept yelling at me to just sit down and relax haha.

The day I was set to head back to NYC I had a few hours to do some more sightseeing. I went to Georgetown which was a beautiful little town and went to visit the stairs that was filmed in the movie The Exorcist, quite steep said to be 5 stories high and I climbed them. After Georgetown we headed to the Art Museum to view a Video Game Exhibit.

Overall DC was a great weekend getaway despite the delayed buses and trains definitely want to go back and visit places I didn’t get a chance to see.