Family photo Oct 2010

Family photo Oct 2010

Monday, August 3, 2015

Ludington Lakestride Half Marathon

The next morning came early... I had trouble falling asleep the night before even though I exhausted so I only ended up getting a few hours of sleep.  I have never done the morning of packet pick up so I was little anxious about that too.  I wasn't worried about the actual run, even though I probably should've trained more.  I was thinking no matter what I was going to finish and Holly reassured me that we weren't going to be getting our PR's this race, so I was in it for a nice relaxing run.  I had never met her friend Elizabeth before but had heard a lot about her.  They met in WV and kept in touch after she and Holly both moved away.  She's great!  Full of personality and energy!






We got to Ludington with time to spare and the weather was COLD.  Poor Elizabeth was freezing because she definitely wasn't used to this kind of weather.  I was happy that it was a bit colder as I do not like running in the hot and humid.  We did a bit of a warm up out to a lighthouse because this was Elizabeth's first time seeing Lake Michigan!  We met up with Jason before the race as he was watching them while we ran.  Unfortunately we took too long on our warm up and we didn't get a chance to hit the bathrooms before the race, as the line was outrageously long so I didn't get to go before the race started... I was hoping that I could make it to the first porta potty!





These smaller runs are nice and not at the same time.  There are obviously less people to have to try and dodge in the smaller ones but the bigger ones have more support and somehow it feels more official.  This one was so spread out that I don't know how they were going to have any more volunteers than they did!




The course itself was much more hilly than I was anticipating.  Holly and Elizabeth kept a pretty easy pace and it was fun to hear them talk to each other and catch up on life.  My favorite part of the whole course was the trails though.  Maybe it was because of where it was in the race but I felt great through there!  The trails were wide enough also so that you could pass people if you needed too.  Holly took off and was flying through the woods!  It was intense!  But when we came out of the trails we were on a huge sand dune and I didn't love having all that sand in my shoe and we still have 7 miles to go.  So, we stopped at the bottom of the hill to empty our shoes and wait for Elizabeth.  When we got to the bottom of the dune we saw this family from Mars that have kids the same age as us... it was kinda funny to see!

The rest of the run we didn't see Elizabeth.. she wasn't feeling the greatest and she was taking her time taking pictures of Lake Michigan and the scenery.  The last probably 5 miles were all along the beach and the view was breath taking, but it also meant that it was pretty windy. Holly and I powered through and talked the whole way which was fun :)

At the end we found Jason and the kiddos and got ready to go.  G wasn't there yet so he was gonna meet us there but then I figured why have him drive all the way up to go back?  We were gonna go and visit with the Slattery's who live between Grand Rapids and Ludington, so we met up with G and the kiddos at an Arby's.  It was raining cats and dogs by the time we got there and that meant I got a little bit of lunch too.  Everything worked out well!  This was the first race I'd ever run with Holly... we had done several races but we never ran together.  It was fun!  I'm hoping we can do some more :)  And it was really great to meet Elizabeth.  Now, off to the Slattery's!

JVG

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