Shipyard Old Port Half Marathon
Finishers: 2,468
July 11, 2014
Today is Dad's Birthday - happy birthday pops! The ironic thing about dad's birthday, is that instead of him getting the present, he nicely let me use some of his Southwest points for my master crafted weekend plans. I was in Chicago leading up to this week and I had a race in Maine on Sunday which left Friday night to figure out where I should stay. Naturally, I realize that New York is sort of close to Maine so I decide to take a flight with dad's help from Chicago to New York to spend the evening with Kali, Ryan and Halie. Kali and Ryan had recently moved to NYC for Ryan's work and I hadn't seen there place in Astoria so the trip was well worth it. I took a cab and met Kali at her place and then we got ready and went into the city with her friends for pizza and Halie Mobley Larson (my sorority little from ZTA at Auburn) came over from her place in New Jersey and met us for dinner. Again, never in a million years would I think I would casually drop into NYC and have two of my best friends in the world get to meet each other over pizza. We had a great night of eating and drinking and just exploring the NYC night life together.
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| Two of my best friends ever - in the same place!!! |
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| City that never sleeps with Kali |
July 12, 2014
The next morning we had planned to do brunch but no one work up. Kali loves her sleep. I had a flight from NYC to Boston at noon so Ryan (Kali's fiance) drove me to the airport and sent me on my way. I arrived in Boston around 1:30pm and picked up my car to drive the 2 hours up to Portland, Maine. I do some work every now and again in Exeter, NH which is right across the border from Maine so I was fairly used to this drive. Of course I stopped at the Nike Outlet because I just had to....you never need a reason for deals.
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| Oh good...Maine's open. |
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| The top of one of the big hills would be well worth the view
I decided to wander the town and look for postcards and dinner. The town is gorgeous and I wish I had more time to explore. I ended up picking up a turkey burger and then decided to drive the coast a little more...when I ran across a place called Benny's that I just had to stop because it was so cute. And I mean... who wouldn't eat fried clams right before a half marathon. Isn't "fried" technically a carb?
So with way too much food in tow, I headed to the Westin where I would be staying for the night and kicked up my feet for the night after my walking tour of Portland.
I realized fairly late that I probably needed breakfast and water for the morning so I ventured out to find a Walgreens to pick up some supplies before heading to bed.
July 13, 2014
The race was starting very early to avoid the heat and my hotel was a good mile or so from the start. It was still cool, so I left the hotel fairly early and as I walked others started emerging from neighboring hotels to join me in my trek to the start line. The race started on the pier and it was a fairly decent sized crowd of about 2000 all lined up on the boardwalk.
 
The race took off at 7am and headed back down the main street towards my hotel and then looped up and around Benny's and through the mansions of the West End neighborhood for the first 4 mile before heading back down towards where we started. Continuing through downtown, we started the ascent up the hill I had mentioned previously near Mile 6 and I knew if I could get to the top, the scenery would be a welcomed treat. I have an odd gift for uphills on my good days and it felt good to activate that stored up power and cruise past people struggling on the hill called Mount Joy.
Once at the top, we followed the road along Casco Bay where we were able to look down and see islands, ferries, sailboats, lobster boats, and paddlers. As I left the first half of the course behind me, I started on the second half which ran on a trail along the Back Cove, a 340-acre circular tidal basin, which was basically a 3.5 mile stretch with spectacular views of the Portland skyline. The only really hard part about this was that the basin was ginormous and the entire loop you could see how much further you had to go. I never realize how far 3 miles is much less 13 miles is until you see it from a bigger picture...or drive it in the car.
It was starting to get hot and a few medics were having to help people on the trail but I just stayed in my groove and kept drinking water. Once off that mentally draining loop, we jumped on another trail that took us along the Eastern Prom trail that passed by the old Grand Trunk Railroad swing trestle bridge AND by a sewage treatment plant. While stinky, there was a long concrete wall along the trail that features some of the city’s best urban art because it is a sanctioned area where graffiti artists can go wild. This area was all concrete and had nowhere to hide from the sun and people were dropping like flies. I just did my best to stay positive and knew the end was near.
The race finally jumped off the path and finished at the Ocean Gateway Terminal near where we had started. It was an adventure getting to the finish line through the windy finishing tunnel but it was, as always, a great feeling to be done and survive the hot sun! My time was fairly in the average zone under 2:10.
I got my treats and had a nice group of ladies take my picture before running another mile back to the hotel so I could quick change and head for the airport to fly back to Chicago for another week.
29 states down, 21 more to go!
#DREAMBIG
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