Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Capital of Casual: Reggae Half Marathon {Race Recap}...

Friday (Reggae Eve):
Drive to Ft. Lauderdale >> Fly to Montego Bay >> Drive to Negril

My brother-in-law, Gavin, picked me up from the airport in Montego Bay and we took the 1.5 hour drive to Negril (there was a lot of traffic, it doesn't usually take that long). Once we got to Negril the first stop was the race expo for our packet pick-up...


We picked up our packets and the packets for my twin sister Sanya, and my brother-in-law Del...

The Reggae Gear...
(some of the coolest race gear I've ever received!)

After Gavin and I got the packets and walked around the expo for a bit, we left for the hotel, checked in, and went to the beach bar, which had a nice unique decor...

Gavin found creative ways to "carb load"...

I had a fruit smoothie and enjoyed the view of the beach...

We spent the rest of the day waiting for my family to get to Negril and then we headed back to the race expo for the famous pre-race Pasta Party...

Where my mom and dad decided to sign-up for the 10K...


Saturday (RACE DAY!!!):
As with all my race days, the morning started really early. I was up from 0330 and ready to go by 0430. The roads were scheduled to be closed from 0400 but thankfully they had shuttles for the runners staying at hotels along the course. 

The course map...

Once we got to the event the start corral was already pretty full and there were still a ton of runners walking around...


(she was running her first full marathon at Reggae!)

We were ready for the start long before the race was ready to get started...

The official race start was 0530 for all participants (marathoners, half marathoners, and 10Kers) so it was still pretty dark outside (hence the reflective gear^^^). And San came out to support and cheer us on even though she wasn't going to run the event...

The race started off ok. We walked from the start to the hotel (a little over a mile)...

and then San left us and we continued the race. Gavin and I were at the back of the pack with the other people walking the race, but most of those individuals had only signed up for the 10K. My mom and dad were a few meters behind us but since Gavin and I had double to the distance to complete we really needed to get started on doing some actual running. This was Gavin's first half so my strategy for us was to do a 1:1 interval (1 minute of running to 1 minute of walking)...

We stuck to the 1:1 ratio from mile 1 to about mile 7.5-8 and then we did ALOT of walking. In the second half of the race time seemed to drag. Some of that had to do with the amount of walking but it also started to get really really HOT. I'm from Florida so I'm no stranger to running in the heat but this race was insanely hot even for me... 

There were quite a few water stations along the course and they provided water and an electrolyte sports drink in little bags (aka "bag juice") which in theory helps avoid the usual puddles around race water stations. The water wasn't my favorite (it tasted weird) and I didn't want to take any chances with having a sports drink I've never tried before, so I didn't hydrate as much as I should have. But I felt good in spite of that. I definitely felt hot, but I didn't feel dehydrated. 

Along the course we were kept entertained by Bob Marley music at every water station. After the 3rd or 4th station though I really wanted to hear other Reggae artists. Don't get me wrong, I love Bob Marley, and his music, and most of his songs are incredible. But he isn't the only artist to make a positive contribution to Reggae music, so it would've been nice if they mixed it up a bit. I made up for the lack of musical variety by blasting Soca music from my phone in between the water stations ;)

In addition to the music we saw a bunch of motivational signs along the course...

And right as the heat index started to get out of control we saw this...
(I could have stayed under the mist tent forever... but we still had 2 more miles to go... and my Garmin isn't water proof)

Gavin was battling with a cramp in his calf so we gave up on trying to stick with a run:walk interval and focused on just trying to walk. We stopped and stretched, we slowed the pace more, we sped up the pace a little, but nothing really helped. As we got closer to the mile 13 mark we saw my cousin Bethany who cheered us on and we mustered up the courage to run the finish... 

Sanya had become great friends with the finish line announcer so we heard our names being called and everyone cheering for us as we finally made it across the finish line...

2015 Reggae Half Marathon Finishers!!!!

We met up with my mom and dad, and Sanya took a post-race medal pic of all of us "Reggae Finishers"...
It was a slow and hot race but on the bright side the medal was a lot nicer than I originally thought it was going to be :)

Another nice thing about this race was that it ends at the beach so after your run you can go straight into the water and cool down...
One of my friends told me that I couldn't run Reggae and not go in the water because that was a part of the whole experience. And although I initially rolled my eyes when I heard that, I'm glad I listened. 

Final post race pic...

Official results...

While I can't say this was my favorite course, I'm glad I was able to run (& walk) the race with my brother-in-law. I'm also glad my mom and dad were able to do the 10K. Hopefully the next time (next year maybe?) Sanya and Del will be able to do it also and maybe we can convince my baby sister to sign up too!

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