Almost every October for the past 4 or 5 years I’ve had a race to train for – in three of those years it was training for the Urbanathlon in Chicago or New York. This year I had intended to complete the city trio and do San Francisco because it was a November race, but for whatever reason they canceled the SF version this year. Bummer. 

So instead of traveling, I stayed at home to run the Duke City Marathon with a relay team. It was my first time doing a relay run and it was so much fun!  For one, training was a lot better when meeting with the whole group or just a couple people.  And there was also more motivation because other people were counting on me. I was honored to be part of the team that first ran the same race 4 years ago. We named our team in honor of one of the orignal team runners who is completing her own marathon recovery after a car accident that took place earlier this year. 

Our race time was 3:52 and finished in 10th place in the female relay category.  Not too shabby for not doing much tempo training.   

 The day itself was a pretty perfect day. Cooler in the morning while I cheered on my team and then warmed up a bit by the time I ran the last leg of the race… I was pretty sweaty. It’s too bad they didn’t do pace times at the different handoff points. I am really interested to see what my pace actually was, but overall we all averaged under a 9 min mile. 
And some other fun shots of the day:

  
All done running!

 
Pre-race fuel from Rebel Donut. Thanks, Ashley! (They were mini and portion controled, right?)

  
The handoff.   

Racing to the finish line! Everyone else looks so fresh faced. 

All in all what a great race and I’m so thankful to C for waking up at 5am after getting in late the night before from a flight and driving me around to the different handoff locations. I will no longer hold it over his head that he missed my last race finish because they were still walking back from breakfast!  

Now to plan for another race?