Joplin Memorial half marathon recap

It's been a while! I've kind of been in a blogging slump lately. It's not that I feel like I don't have anything to say but it's more like it was starting to feel like one more thing to add to my to do list.  Anyway that's another post for another day! Today I wanted to recap my half marathon from last weekend before I forget all the details!

A couple of months ago I saw a picture of the half marathon medal on Instagram and I loved it! I looked up the race and I was even more excited when I saw that they had race day packet pick up. Trying to do 14 half marathons this year can get kind of expensive when you have to travel so whenever there is a race that is sort of close I jump on it!

I had to be in Joplin by 5:30 at the latest to pick up my packet and it is a 2+ hour drive from our house so my alarm was set for 2 AM!

I made it in plenty of time and I actually had time to go and sit back in the car and eat my tortillas and cheese. The weather was perfect at the start.  It wasn't too hot at the beginning but I knew it would probably get a lot warmer before we were done.  We were supposed to start at 6:30 and right before the start they let off balloons for each of the victims of the 2011 tornado.

The course seemed so much less crowded after running OKC just a couple of weeks ago.  I actually had room to move! The first couple of miles were pretty flat and uneventful.  We ran by neighborhoods that were completely flattened by the tornado and it was so surreal to see just the foundation on the ground where you knew a house had once stood.  There would be huge tall trees on one side of the street and then not a single tree on the other side. Growing up in Arkansas it is kind of a requirement that you are familiar with tornadoes and the destruction that they can cause.  It is almost a rite of passage when you are a kid to spend your first night in a hallway with a mattress over your head.  I remember spending an entire afternoon when I was in Kindergarten under a table because there was a tornado warning for our area.  But it is a completely different experience when you see the devastation first hand.  Especially when the area is still being rebuilt even 3 years later. The neighborhoods that were completely wiped out had the most crowd support.  A lot of the people who had lost their homes and loved ones were out on the course and cheering all the runners on.  

This was one of the hardest hit neighborhoods.

Around mile 3 was when it got rough. I had asked David the night before if Joplin was hilly or flat and he said he thought it was pretty flat.  This would be about the time that I sent him a text to let him know he was a liar!

I sent him this picture when I finished of the elevation profile.  At least I feel like I wasn't completely crazy and there really wasn't any flat stretches!

I love how you can see how uphill this part of the course is!

I just kept pushing on even though the humidity was getting crazy and it literally felt like I was swimming through the air instead of running through it.  The race did an amazing job with plenty of water stations and many of the stations had cold towels which is the best idea ever! I really started to struggle at mile 10.  The sun was out and all the clouds were gone by then and it was just hot! Plus I had the added bonus of a messed up ankle.  The night before I was walking into a restaurant to get our dinner and fell in a hole and twisted my ankle.  Of course because of my crazy weak ankles from spraining it so many times during softball in my teens the swelling  was pretty immediate.  It looked like I had a golf ball under my sock.  I was glad it hadn't bothered me until mile 10 but it made the last 3 miles pretty miserable.

I'm only smiling because I was almost done!

The finish line was so much fun! They wait until every single person crosses the finish line before they hand out the age group awards so all of the super fast and mid pack runners were still hanging around when all of us in the back of the pack showed up.  They were lining the route and giving us all high fives.  That never happens when I finish! At this race they give the absolute last person an award and they get a red lantern to take home.  I was actually kind of hoping I would be last but I knew there were several people behind me.

They had the absolute best food for a finish line! There were Panera bagels and they actually had some left! If you finish in the back of the pack you know how big of a deal that is! They also had Quizno's sandwiches and Qdoba soup. I was so excited! :)

I finally hobbled back to the car and headed home.  I will definitely run Joplin next year.  I love the medal and the race director did an amazing job! I went into this race not really expecting a lot but it ended up being one of my favorite races.  I didn't come close at all to setting a PR or even doing as well as OKC two weeks ago but I'm ok with that! They can't all be easy or PRs!

Did anyone else run the Joplin Memorial Run? What did you think?