therunnerwithin

2015 was another memorable year in running. I face some new challenges and continued to grow as a runner.

Favorite Overall Race. Iron Girl. I got to run it with two good running friends, my third running friend, Barbara, just so happened to be having her first baby as we toed the finish line 🙂 It was my BRF, Pretty Lil’ Mudder first half and it was a huge PR for me. I beat last years time by almost 10 minutes and broke 2:30.

Best Time/PR. I PR’d two distances, the Iron Girl Half Marathon at 2:28:08 and the St. Pete Beach Classic 10K at 01:03:38.

New Distance. This year I tackled the Glass Slipper Challenge as part of Disney’s Princess Half Marathon weekend. For those not familiar with Disney races, the Glass Slipper Challenge is a 10K on Saturday followed up with the half marathon on Sunday. I trained with back to back runs to prepared myself but in the end I went out there to run it for fun and neglected my time.

Most Challenging Course. I am awarding this to my first OCR run, Rugged Maniac. Naturally I talked my BRF into running her first half, so she talked me into completing my first OCR. It was definitely different compared to just running for x-amount of miles. Now that I am doing these fitness boot camp classes I’m getting stronger and am considering doing another OCR, maybe Rugged Maniac, sometime in the future.

Best Post-Race Food/Beverages. I’m usually not one for the post-race party, ill walk around grab a granola bar and a banana and then be on my way. Just as it did last year, the St. Pete Beach Classic wins my vote for this category again. All the post race amenities are patrolled by volunteers and in order to access the food tent you must show your bib, if your guests do not have one they are not allowed inside. I like this as too many times at races see I many non-runners indulging in the post-race party food. The food at this race was really good too. They had assorted fruit, yogurt, bagels, other pastries, even rice and beans.

Best Course Support (aid stations, volunteers, people cheering you on, etc). While Disney was by far the most prepared race when it came to hydration stops and fuel, The Florida Holiday Halfathon  had the best course support. They had water, Gatorade, oranges, and power ice on course, but at every mile marker was a volunteer standing there cheering you on and holding a motivating sign, and there was paramedics along the way to aid in emergency response.

Today, I am teaming up with several wonderful ladies for an end of the year link up blog post to discuss our year in running and racing by “awarding” our experiences.

Link up your post about this theme so your post will be found in the linkup archives.  Then, link back to our blogs to share the linkup with your readers.

Shout out to my BRF, Montana over at Pretty Lil’ Mudder, for organizing all of this 🙂

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