In August 2012 Ryan and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary. We wanted to go somewhere for a weekend to celebrate, and I thought what better way to celebrate than running in a destination race together while I get to cross off another state. We decided on Virginia Beach because neither one of us had spent much time on the east coast, we both love beaches, and the Verizon Music Festival was going to be taking place that weekend. There would be dozens of bands on the beach all weekend and we would have an extra day with Monday being Labor Day. We couldn’t leave until Saturday morning because Ryan had football and we had to be back for the first day of school on Monday.

Life leading up to the race had been crazy, but the weekend away was a perfect way to celebrate five years and the end of summer. It felt like we were gone much longer than an extended weekend. We drove to Milwaukee after Ryan’s football game and when I was done working my shift at my other job. We spent the night across the street from the airport and were on our flight which left bright and early at 7:30 am. By 11:30 we were in our rental car and ready to explore.

We decided to drive the Chesapeake Bay bridge, a 20 some mile bridge that creates a short cut over the bay by going over the bay and in tunnels underneath the bay. It was so neat to be driving on a bridge with water all around for miles and miles. After our little bay adventure we headed to packet pickup. I eyed up some compression socks, but since it was going to be way to warm to wear any extra layers I decided to save them for another time. I did buy a new Sweaty Band to commemorate our anniversary weekend race.

We checked into our hotel room and snapped a few photos before heading out to explore the boardwalk and beach.

That night we went out for dinner and enjoyed some delicious pasta and local beer. Then we sat on the beach listening to music for a few hours before calling it a night.

Race morning came, and it was hotter than we expected. The temperature was 80 degrees at the start of the race with 86% humidity. Ugh! We both hate running in the heat and humidity. We knew it would be like this, but didn’t think it would be quite so warm and humid. We both struggled through the entire race. We were drenched with sweat one mile into the race. We both slowed our pace, encouraged each other, and simply ran as best we could. Even locals in the race were discussing how hot and humid it was.

Luckily, the sun stayed behind the clouds for most of the race. Finishing on the boardwalk parallel to the ocean was great. There were some ocean breezes as we ran the long boardwalk mile.

What better way to cool down than in the ocean water after the race. We then walked barefoot, shoes in hand to our hotel, with waves splashing up on us the entire way. We both felt sick from the heat and humidity. Each of us had rockin’ headaches, so we took a quick nap. The nap turned into a two and a half hour event, but was much needed. We both felt much better afterwards. The rest of the day was spent on the beach and enjoying our favorite ice cream, Ben and Jerry’s.

Despite the heat and humidity, we enjoyed the entire weekend. The race ended up being my slowest half marathon, but I thought I did remarkably well considering my disdain for hot weather running.

Virginia Beach Half Marathon
Time: 2:04:59
Pace: 9:32
Overall: 1971/10958
Gender: 702/6217
AG: 132/1125