Race: Covered Bridges Half Marathon
Date/Location: June 5th, 2016 in Woodstock, VT
Weather: Constant rain for all 13 miles
Pre-Race: Coffee, half a banana and a Lara bar
Post-Race: Harpoon Cider and vanilla ice cream 😉

This was my third half marathon (1, 2) and it’s a trend that I have never loved to train for them. I started running in 2010, was consistent through 2013, but then put running on the back burner for most of 2014. It took me until basically the end of 2015 for me to even feel like a ‘runner’ again. I ran a lot last fall and winter, but training for this half officially started in March. I signed up with 2 friends, Kay + Josh, and having them to keep me accountable with runs during the week was helpful. We encouraged each other from afar and it was awesome. My training was pretty on point, miles-wise, minus our 2 week trip to Italy in April, but I got back on the wagon as soon as I got home.

Going into this half, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be anywhere close to as fast as I was the first two times. YUP, my training definitely proved that. I was bummed at first, but eventually had to accept the fact that I’m slow (for now, but I want to work on that!). I set a rough goal of 2:40 based on my training runs, but told myself I wouldn’t be mad if I went slower.

GET TO RACE DAY STEPHANIE, they said. 😂

Nate dropped us off at the starting area about an hour before the start. As it turns out, a few women from my town PLUS a good friend from childhood/life, Erin, and her friend, Mar, were all going to be running too! (as well as my 2 friends I already mentioned! squad!🙌) It was really easy to find each other because the area was small and we all had to pick up our race bibs anyways.

It had already started raining before the race started, so Kay, Josh and I took cover under some trees to stay as dry as we could before being continuously soaked for 2.5 hours. About 10 minutes before the start we got into our loosely divided corrals and waited/stretched. Josh went up to a fast corral, while Erin, Kay and I stayed near the 2:30 pacers. Kay and I decided to try and stick with this group for a bit, which we actually did for about 3 miles. Then we kinda fell behind, but kept a strong and steady pace on our own. (Erin was going strong with the pacer though!)

I was feeling good and optimistic until mile 7, when I drank maybe too much water and my stomach was heavily gurgling. Luckily I walked it off quickly. I knew mile 8 was where Nate was cheering for us, so I looked forward to seeing him. It gave me a boost of energy for a minute! But only a minute, because then we had to go up a huge hill! 😳 It was steep and Kay and I both walked it. From 8 to 9 Kay was ahead of me and I honestly felt like walking the rest of the way. Nothing was hurting too badly, but I was just tired and very wet haha. But I checked my watch and realized that I might actually be able to make the 2:40 goal, so I sucked it up and picked up the pace. Right around mile 10 is when we realized Erin was in front of us! So we caught up to her over the next half mile and pretty much from 10.5 to the end, the 3 of us were running together. It was really cool, actually.

Kay took off sprinting the last, maybe, 800 yards and finished at an EVEN 2:40 time! And Erin and I came in ONE SECOND apart, 2:40:41 and 42 (all our finish photos are together! awww) We all had our struggles during the race, but we all pushed through 💪 and it was really special to finish it with two of my oldest friends (Erin since kindergarten and Kay since we were 15).

The name of the half is the Covered Bridges half, so you’d think we’d run over a couple covered bridges, right? Nope, we only ran OVER one bridge, and ran PAST two others. They were still cool to look at, though. The whole course was gorgeous, even in the rain. Oh yeah! And every few miles there was live music! A high school jazz band, a troop of boy scouts and their drums, a local folk group, a guy and his guitar, and most notably… a bunch of kids playing recorders. Ha! I thought that was a really cool addition to the course. OH VERMONT.

Overall, minus being soaked to the bone, it was good and I’m glad we went through with it and I love Vermont. And I might sign up for another half in November. 😆