Bellingham Half Marathon

I am the proud owner of a new half marathon PR!

It was the inagural running of the Bellingham Bay Marathon. There were a few attractive things about this run. One of our friends grew up in Bellingham, and we always enjoy hanging out at his Mom's property. Along with the marathon and half marathon, the event also had a 10k. Something for everyone! We had three people walk the 10k and four of us running the half. Plus it is always cool to do a first-time event.

We headed up Friday night, so we had Saturday to relax and get settled. The packet pickup was just that, no expo. No cool running gadgets to spend money on. We had a traditional pasta dinner and some tasty beverages. While we were having dinner, the weather turned ugly. The wind was blowing pretty hard and the rain was coming down. Lots off branches were coming down in the wind. It was not looking good for tomorrow.

In the morning, the wind was still blowing pretty hard, but the rain had subsided. We bundled up and headed down to the start line near the waterfront, and the wind was even worse by the water. A whole line of porta-potties had been blown over (not pretty). I had jumped online to check the weather, and I was pretty sure we were going to get rained on before we were done. We were all pretty bundled up. The walkers headed out at 7:30 and the runners at 8:00.

The route was nice, running through Fairhaven, along the waterfront, and up through a shwanky neighborhood before doubling back. It was relatively hilly, but mostly in the first half. We were also running into the wind in the first half, so the route home was much easier. My IT band issues resurfaced in the last 2 miles and the last mile or so was back into the wind, so the end was a little tough.

I really didn't have a definite time goal in mind. I haven't been running regularly and the farthest I had run was an 8 miler five weeks ago. The runs I have done recently have gone pretty well though, so I had some hope. Outside of the knee trouble, the day went pretty well. I kept a pretty steady pace throughout. My previous best was 2:14:56 so I was hoping for around 2:10 if all went well. I came in today at 2:01:22, so I was pretty happy. So now I'm only 3:32 from my current half marathon goal.