Baltimore Running Fest 2011

So, I did it! I ran in the Baltimore Marathon Relay yesterday! It was such a beautiful day to run; the weather was perfect! I spent the night before dutifully eating my carbs (CRAB FRIED RICE! SERIOUSLY!) and going to bed semi-early, and it really paid off. I had great run. My husband Joe and my best friend Kelsey came to watch and cheer me on! Kelsey is awesome. She made shirts and everything. They had bacon cheeseburgers on them and said, "SARAH!" So fitting. I had been saying for weeks that as soon as I finished running, I was going to eat a bacon cheeseburger for lunch. And oh did I!

As for the race itself, I did really great. As you can see in this post and this post, I've been running at a 9:30+ pace all while training. But in the race, I pulled off a 9:03 pace, and finished my 7 miles in 1:04:04.

I ran one of the two longer legs of the race, and had the best pace of my entire team. I feel like that's something to be proud of! My pace looks slightly slower when you look at the team score compared to my tracker, but that's due to the fact that I had to stop and take off the time chip, which was secured around my ankle, and pass it off to my teammate. My time didn't technically end until she left the exchange zone with the chip attached to her person. Overall, we had a pretty good time for the entire marathon with 4:29:43.

Individual leg lengths:

Our Team's time:

Speaking of tracking my pace, I've never been happier to have my iPhone. I really had a hard time deciding to get one, and everyday I feel more and more like it was the right decision. Not only did I love using my iPhone to track my run and listen to music (today and throughout training), but I was able to snap pics throughout my run so easily. I sent picture texts to Joe and Kelsey to let them know how far along I was. I mainly sent pictures of the mile markers:

Doing this while running was so much easier and understandable than sending a text message saying "I'm at mile 8" would have been. Plus, this way there was no confusing between mile 8 of the entire marathon and how far I'd run personally. By doing this, they knew when I was getting close to them so that they could easily snap a photo. Here I am:

 Overall, it was a really great race, and a good experience. But I think next year I'll do the half-marathon. I've done the relay twice, and I think I've gotten all of the satisfaction I can out of it. Especially when I work really hard to have a great pace, and my teammates really don't measure up. Not trying to have my nose in the air, but when one of your teammate's pace is a full 3 minutes per mile slower than yours, that overall time is kind of a let down. Plus, I barely trained for this, and with a little more effort toward training, I think I could pull off the half. Not to mention, I really want one of those nifty "13.1" stickers for my car! Vain? Probably. I don't care though.

Speaking of vain, here are a few more pics of the day. Eat your heart out, bitches:

 Word to your mother.