Race Recap: Columbus 1/2 Marathon part 1

Saturday my running buddy Carrie and I headed off to Columbus OH for the Nationwide Columbus Marathon and Half-marathon.  Not that it was too far of a drive, only an hour.  Managed to get in around 5 and go swing by the expo to pick up our packets.

They had little stalls for the bib numbers, which you just had to get in line for your bib, and then swing over and get your shirt.  For some reason, for the Half numbers 10,000-11,999 had a line that was about 300 people that winded its way through the expo.  All the other stalls were mostly empty...and guess what my number was?  10,840.  Crap, so we waited in line for awhile, people were getting out of line when they realized it was for the bibs not the shirts or they realized that their bib number was something else.  Eventually we got our bibs, then off to check out the expo.
  Maybe I got spoiled with the Air Force Marathon's expo, but I figured the Columbus marathon would be way better considering how many people run in it, but it was disappointing.  Not a lot there which was good on my wallet, at least.   We did like the One More Mile display.  I bought a shirt for my dh last month from them.  We had fun reading the shirts.   

Dinner of champions!

So after the expo, we decided that we'd stay in for dinner.  The idea of walking around Columbus with my heel reminding me that it hurt every (other) step (thank god for aleve) was not sounding appealing so Carrie brought spaghetti with her.  THE BEST IDEA EVER.  We warmed it up in the hotel restaurant and ate out in the lobby and people watched.   Some guy stopped to talk to us and told us the hotel restaurant had sold out of all pasta.  Score!

  Then we just chilled out in our room. One of my coworkers was running the full and is beast of a triathlete, came down and we just talked for a good hour.  She'd run Columbus a few times so I asked a zillion questions.  She gave me great pep talk helped me during the race.  Thanks Jenny!

Finally decided we should go to bed around 10:00.  Had the worst night of sleep possible...woken up by drunk, laughing people in the hall, dry heat in the room, potty breaks, finally it was 5:15 am.

Breakfast of banana and cliff bar and 1/2 cup of coffee, got out of the hotel around 6:30 and walked with the masses of runners the 3 blocks to the state capital.  I about threw up on the way.  I have a super sensitive nose when I'm nervous and we kept walking by Ginkgo trees- whose leaves smell like throw up when they've been step on. Anyways, coughing and gagging I finally got away from those damn trees.  So the first "mile" long portapotty line...decided to skip it and look for others.  We turned the corner and in a dark alley there was a whole bunch that no one had really discovered yet.  So, clean and no smelly porta potties are a good thing (especially if your nervous like me-see Gingko trees above)

We stretched (sort of) and listened to the band and waited before getting into our corrals.  My heel was feeling great.  Finally, we entered our corral, and waited to get started on the race.  Which I will post later...