Marine Corps Half Marathon

What better way to spend a Sunday morning in Spring than to run 13.1 miles? My friend Chris peer pressured me into signing up for the first ever Marine Corps Half Marathon down in Fredericksburg, Virgina. I caught a flight down to Virginia, crashed at his house for a night, and we drove down to Fredericksburg to run the race. This is the same "friend" who dropped a brick on my finger in first grade, so I really should have known better. The picture above is me somewhere in the middle of the race. The maps the Marines provided of the course prior to the race made the run seem fairly flat throughout, but in reality it seemed much hillier towards the beginning and end. Despite the hills Chris, his co-worker Will and I all finished in respectable times. While traditional wisdom says that carbohydrates should be the focus of your dinner the night before a race, we three geniuses decided to poo-poo tradition and settled on pork barbecue for our dinner. A little running tip for all you hopeful half-marathoners out there: stick to the carbs.

Chris, his wife Megan, and their three sons Brandon, Owen and Kellan live in Leesburg, VA just outside of DC. As I mentioned, they put me up for the Friday night before the race. As you can see, the kids provided the majority of the entertainment. With three kids under the age of 5, I'm not really sure where Chris gets the energy to run 13 miles on a weekend, but he did it. Probably has something to do with the excellent woman Chris has for a wife.

Here's Owen mugging for the camera. The kids were fun. Brandon taught me how to play Mario Kart and then we all went out to a local park and threw rocks into a creek. What more can a kid ask for in a day?

Seeing as how Richmond is only an hour or so drive from Fredericksburg, my brother and his family drove up to cheer us on. They were waiting for me right around mile 12.5 and, after some high fives from Peyton and Alison, I was able to finish the race strong. The race started at 7am, so by the time I was finished and all cleaned up, it was still barely 11am. We had about an hour to kill before lunch, so we went to the local Barnes and Noble. These cushions made a perfect little play pen for Alison, while Courtney and Peyton discussed some of literature's classic protagonists like Dora the Explorer and Superman.

Here is Alison getting ready for nap time in the back seat of the van. Wait, she's buckled in so maybe we were on our way to lunch. Either way, she's still cute.