Whidbey Island Half Marathon 2016

The first event of my bucket/goal list for the year was the Whidbey Island half marathon. Click HERE if you'd like to read about my bucket/goal list.

We went to Oak Harbor Friday for the packet picket up. On the way there we drove the half marathon  course. I already knew it would be a hilly, but I got some serious butterflies in my stomach as we drove it. After we got our race bibs and info. we drove the course again in the reverse direction just for fun. For some reason it didn't look as daunting to me on the return trip.

We got up early and left our house at 4:15 am Saturday for our drive to Oak Harbor, since we wanted to be on the shuttle bus by 6 am. The race instructions stated that no one could park at the start or be dropped off there, all participants would have to take the shuttle buses that would be at a large parking lot by Windjammer park (City beach). The buses would take us to the start line at Cornet bay.

It was a fun bus ride, the driver had the radio up loud. 

It definitely woke me up. 

When we got to the start line it was a little chilly (low 40's), but not too bad. We were treated to free Starbucks coffee while we waited for about an hour for the race start. It helped to keep our hands warm :-)

The race was started in waves of runners determined by the pace group you wanted to stay with.

We waited with the end pack - no determined pace.

We started the course right away with a nice hill up to hwy 20. 

We only ran on hwy 20 a short period of time and quickly took a left on Ducken rd. and stayed on the side country roads for the remainder of the course.

It was a good challenging course for me. The aid station folks were great, very encouraging and full of energy. With about 1 mile to go my left hamstring began to feel spasms, so we walked off and on to the finish line. We didn't stick with our 15 minute run/5 minute walk interval plan since the course was so hilly. We decided to run when we could and power walk up the hills that became to steep for us to run. I think this may have led to my spazzy hamstring. We definitely ran for more consecutive minutes than I was used to. Lesson learned we will try to keep to our intervals for the marathon in June. My legs need the walking breaks.

My garmin heart rate chart shows that I worked hard.

At any rate we finished!!!

I delayed writing about the race hoping that the official event pictures would be available to add in this posting, but they still aren't up yet. I will add some as they become available.

Official Whidbey Island race photos - the many faces & emotions of the day.
*photo collage added 4/20/16

First of the "savoring my 62nd year of life bucket/goal list" - done!

Endomondo & (official chip) stats:

13.1 miles

chip time - 3:07:08

total ascent - 738 feet

total descent - 706 feet