Grace: Navy Air Force Half Marathon and Navy 5 Miler Part 2

As you know most of my "rest" day was spent site seeing around DC, not your typical rest day I would say.

Standing in the National Mall in front of the Capitol
building.

Pre-race prep, night of...
What do people typically load up on before a big race...Carbs! Whether it is pizza or pasta. Well needless to say I didn't have either of those, but I did have some sort of carbs haha. I had what was left over from my tuna sandwich from Harrington's Pub & Kitchen, a piece of soda bread, veggies, and then a bag of popcorn. Not exactly carb loaded but definitely got more carbs than usual in.
After eating mom wanted to walk down to the water for a little bit because the have all kinds of restaurants and shops down there. We first started to walk to a place called Stonewall Kitchen. If you haven't been there at least visit their website.
www.stonewallkitchen.com
They have some amazing jelly's, jams, dressings, dipping sauces, all kinds of good stuff. They also have things to taste test in the store! (O wait we did Stonewall Kitchen on Thursday before going to eat haha)
But we did walk down to check out a restaurant to eat at on Saturday night. There was Rosa Mexicana, McLoone's Pier House, Bond 45, McCormick and Schmick's, and some other really nice restaurants. After getting really tired, well at least me anyway, we headed back up to the resort. I will be the first to admit I can be tired but as long as I'm off my feet and in bed I'm perfectly fine. Mom hit the bed and was sound asleep by 10, myself...I didn't go to bed until about 11pm. Not very wise as far as being prepared to run 13.1 miles the next day huh? I was not prepared for this race in many ways. I was super nervous!
My goals:
1) run the entire 13.1 miles
2) not come back on crutches!!
I told a friend that I was nervous and he reassured me that I would kick butt and not to worry about a thing.

"The Libery Song: Then 7 hand in hand brave..."
I was absolutely in awe of this when I say it
blended into a hand stitched American flag.

From 93 to 60-something "Race Day!"
I started with a 4:30am wake up and started getting ready for race day. I had everything that I would need to have on my body already laid out...shorts, sports bra, racing top, headband, music armband w/ headphones, iphone, bib on my race belt, racing shoes and sock! Woo that's a lot of stuff.
So next was breakfast...cereal w/ almond milk (carbs...) and I had something for some extra protein but honestly can't remember what now. My mom woke up around 5 and once we were both ready. She was all dressed out in her race shirt, smart lady because it was freezing outside. We headed to the metro station at 5:30am. The metro was opening up an hour earlier than normal due to the race. We took the subway over the the Smithsonian stop and when we started to go head to the escalator to go up the National Mall I realized how cold it was and stayed down in the Metro station, simply because it was warmer. Mom was nice enough to give me her race shirt, long sleeve, to help me stay warm and not freeze since I get cold so easily.
The race started in front of the Washington monument. (The picture you see below is that monument, but it is currently under renovations since the earthquake in 2011 that damaged some of the frame work.)

The sunrise reflecting on the Washington
monument, the starting and finishing
point of our race.

Once I got in line I actually saw 3 other people that were apart of Team RWB; one lady introduced herself to me. I also saw two more on the subway on the way to the race.

Right before I lined up to start my race. Mom
started about and hour later than I did.

While on the race, all I thought for the first little while was lets just make it to mile marker 3 and you will be good to go, just past mile 3. I wasn't really worried about the rest, I could mentally push myself through the rest if I needed too. There were plenty of water stops along the way, but I didn't take in as much water as I should have. The weather was cool out so I never felt like I was really hot, but should have taken in more fluids anyway. I think I grabbed water 2 or 3 times during the whole race.

Once I hit mile 5, which was a turn around point and of course was uphill, I was ready for mile 6 and 7. Well, next thing I knew I was on mile 8! What exactly happened to the mile 6 and 7 mile markers, who knows? I swore that the race organizers had messed up and would fix it later on down the course, whether it would take a little while longer to reach mile 9 or just some how fix the mile markers. Well, then I hit mile 9 and 10, and I still swore I was going to run an extra 2 miles over what the mile markers said.

Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks at Mile 10!

I have had a lot on my mind these past couple of day and while passing mile 10 I had this great epiphany. My great epiphany was about men. I have been dating lately and I finally start to like one of them and something goes wrong. I have felt like I am ready to be in a relationship for a while and it just isn't happening. So while on my run, I just thought...Why in the world am I looking for love from men when I have the one person in my life that will love me unconditionally not matter what, God! I had somehow felt that my relationship with God was going stronger that weekend despite me not spending time with him. All these men on earth were disappointing me and failing me, but God never will. So my focus is to just focus on my relationship with God and he will provide the man that will be a strong Godly leader like I have been wanting when he is ready. It also helped a friend had send me something the night before as well to this effect.

I was only 1 mile out from the finish line. While I was running another girl that I had seen on the subway from Team RWB passed me. I wasn't worried about it, I wanted to just finish the race and not be hurt. So I just chugged on along and of course when you see the finish line you pick up speed, where that last burst of energy and adrenaline comes from who knows. The race was tracked by gun time and chip time. Places were given prizes based on their gun time, which I'm not sure I really consider fair, but anyway. I came across the finish line when the time clock was hitting almost 2:08:00. I was determined to finish before it hit that number. As I came across the finish line I found the girl that had the Team RWB shirt on waiting at the finish line for me to give me a high five and tell me good job! (Stephen Murebeil, you were completely right when you said they would take care of me. I'm still in awe of the support I received from the other members of this team when they had no idea who I was!)

After crossing the finish line, and collected post
race snacks and finisher coin.

After limping around right after the finish, my knees and hips were killing me. Mom and I headed back to our resort and headed straight for the hot tub, only about 5-10min worth and then we headed back upstairs. Myself personally, for a nice long nap!!

Race shirt, my bib number and finisher coin.

Hot tub recovery, pre nap. Loved that nap for sure.

After my nap, we headed back into DC for a little bit more site seeing and didn't end up eating dinner until 8:45pm.O and by they way, this is not a way to go about preparing for a race! So please don't do what I did. I typically don't prepare like this either.

More photos from Day 2 of DC site seeing: