Labor Day Half Marathon 2013!

Labordayrun.com

I'm officially done with 9 out of my 13 half marathons this year. Only four more to go, I can do this!

This time it was the Labor Day Half Marathon in Redmond, WA. It started and finished at Marymoor park. I picked up my race packet the day before the race in Seattle and they didn't really have anything fun in the bag, just tons of ads for the sponsors and some other race discount fliers for next year.

The race started at 9:00AM, my least favorite time of day for any half marathon during the summer time anyway. It was already so hot before the race even started, it was estimated to be 82 degrees that day. If I run at the pace I've been running lately with my knee injuries, I knew it was going to be super hot by the time I was going to finish.

I struggled this race, for some reason it seemed so much harder than all the other races I've done. There were a few factors, no on course entertainment, not very many people cheering along the course, the route was boring and it was sooooooo hot and the water station at mile 10 was out of water by the time I got there, what?!?! Those were just a few things that didn't happen, but they did and some of them are what they are and you just can't do anything about it.

The course itself started in Marymoor park, like I said and then we ran through downtown Redmond over to Willows road, which is a pretty big road, so there were cars driving by and kind of noisy. We ran by the golf course, then we turned down to head towards the Sammamish River trail and took that back to Redmond and to Marymoor park.

The finish of this race was my favorite part, not only because I was finishing, but because I was the only one running towards it the last 200 meters or so and all of a sudden I hear footsteps behind me and I look back and this guy is trying to pass me at the very end. There were a ton of people at finish line watching and I turn to the guy as I'm running and go "oh hell no" and I just start running as fast as my legs will go and he is doing his best and we just sprinted to the finish and I BEAT him!!! Everybody was laughing so hard and he came over to me afterwards and told me thanks for the encouragement at the end! It was really fun finishing like that, but I was beat, probably shouldn't have done that, but oh well, I enjoyed it.

They had a band playing and some booths with vendors and a Mac & Jack's beer garden. I didn't bring any cash, so I just walked around the booths for a little bit and headed back home.

As far as my knees went, I did much better than I thought. I was wearing knee supports on both knees and downed three Advil before the race and three more half way through and I made it to the end without too much pain. I feel like the supports definitely helped and I hope that I'll be able to finish my challenge for the year as I had wanted.

Hope to see you run!

Keili