Pre-race
With this race being Thanksgiving weekend, we did Thanksmas on Thursday & then traveled Friday. We arrived in Orlando on Friday evening and then drove to Cape Canaveral, checked into the hotel, & ventured out to find dinner.
One of the best restaurants for easy gluten free dining is Outback, so that's where we went. We were shocked at how short the wait was. After a good dinner, we headed to Walmart to pick up a couple of things (like a case of water) and then back to the hotel.
Saturday, we headed to packet pickup at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center. It wasn't completely obvious to us that we had to have a ticket to enter the expo. Thankfully, J saw the table where we were supposed to get our expo tickets & then we were on our way through security.
The expo itself was pretty small. We picked up our bibs, then in to get our shirts, and then wandered around for a few minutes.
After wandering around, we headed into the display area that was in the building where the expo was. Once we saw all of it, we headed back to the car to drop off the race swag and then back to get tickets to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center (proper).
We explored the KSCVC for the rest of the afternoon. I'll just leave it at that!
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| The Big Bang Series Medals |
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| Love this shirt, but not enough to buy it/wear it |
Race
The busses started running at 4:30am. We decided to head down around 4ish to be sure that we were there when the bus arrived. Imagine our surprise when the bus was already there at 4:05 and people were on it! By 4:15, our hotel's bus was full, so we headed to the race site. It was about a 15 minute drive.
Once at the race site, we wandered around a bit trying to figure out where the finish & start lines were (in that order too). After a while, we found a couple of seats on some steps & chilled out for a while. At some point, we decided to use the port-a-potties and then go back to sitting. The one problem with getting to the race site at 4:30am is that the race didn't start until 6am... meaning 1.5 hrs of sitting around!
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| Ready to go! |
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| "Why am I up this early?" |
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| Ready to race |
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| Island Boost! |
Around 5:45, we were told to start migrating towards the start line, which was about 1 - 2 blocks over. Super short walk. We finally figured out where the start line was (this is one of my complaints about the race!) and headed that way. Once there, there was no real organization. There were some signs showing general pace/miles, but otherwise it was a self-seeding corral. I actually don't mind races like this. It was kind of confusing and hard to find the section I wanted to be in.
I finally found the Galloway pace group for 2:30 and kissed J goodbye. He needed to find the 3:00 group. We stood there & waited for the start. People were chatting & reassuring the newbies that they could do the race! During the National Anthem, the microphone the singer was using kept going out and all of us started singing. I love runners. I was so moved (and had tears in my eyes... I mean, the National Anthem does that to me without everyone singing).
Not too long after the National Anthem, we were off! Our pacer went out super fast. I knew we were in for a rough day given her run pace. We all kept asking her "are we fast?" and she kept saying "nope, we're right on pace.". Up to mile 11.5, I stuck with the group. Right around 11.5, I just had enough. We ran 7 of the first 10 miles under our projected pace... with runs included. This includes the first 5 miles. Mile 10, we ran in 10:58. We were supposed to be doing 11:27.
On the way back (after mile 6.5 or so), we had a pretty wicked head wind. Nothing like that to tire you out a bit!
My calves started getting cramped & nothing was fixing the issue. I know better & should've had salt with me. That's ALWAYS my problem. Ah well. I walked/ran/limped to the finish line. The last 2 miles were miserable, but a lesson.
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| Awesome medals! Can't wait to collect the others. |
I finished in 2:34:05. 4:05 slower than I would've liked. Ah well. Maybe 2014. I got to watch J come in, which is always awesome.
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| J coming in to the finish |
Post-race
After the race, we got a few things to eat (bananas & oranges), got on the bus, & headed to the hotel. We showered & got on our way to the next leg of our trip - Disney! We got to meet up with some friends & had a couple of days to wander around. So much fun!
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| Geeking out wearing our race shirts & compression sleeves! |
Results
Overall: 2:34:05
5k split: 35:13
10k split: 1:10:38
15k split: 1:46:17
Weather
Temperature: 66
Humidity: 52%
Wind: 8 mph NW wind
Placements
Division: 108/260
Overall: 1369/2938
Gender: 821/2038
