Mel On...Plans Change and PRs Happen! (9th Deutsche Weinstrasse Half Marathon)

Last night I was too excited to sleep!  We had a hectic, early morning (thanks time change) but we made it to our meet up point somewhat on time and caravanned to one of the designated parking lots outside of Bockenheim, Germany for shuttle pick up to the 9th Deutsche Weinstrasse Half Marathon!

Everything went surprisingly easily once we hit the road (although in the chaos of the morning I left my hydration belt, fuel, and sunglasses!).  We arrived at the shuttle bus earlier than planned and were able to use the porta-potty while it was still clean (woot woot).  Buses were running every 15 min. so we didn't have much of a wait time and once we got there we just followed the sea of spandex to the expo tents!

Packet pick-up was a breeze and we all felt a lot more comfortable once we had our bibs on! We ended up having about an hour before the race start to check out the expo, go to the bathroom (again), and take advantage of some photo ops before lining up!

The whole area was absolutely gorgeous!  Here are some pics from the race's FB page of the location:

It was beautiful!  The weather, the scenery, all of it!  I didn't even mind all the hills...except that dag-nab never ending sucker at mile 11 that wanted to make me spit fireballs.

It also helped that I had amazing company!  We started out with the four of us agreeing that we would try to stick together but if Sarah and Jen wanted to break off and go ahead (it was Jen's first half....which she ROCKED!) that Bri and I would try to catch up (we originally planned to walk the uphill and drink the downhill).  But, plans change and I am SO GLAD they did!  We all ended up keeping up together and each of us caught a second wind at just the right time to keep the rest of us motivated and trucking.  Literally, seven miles passed by before we started to realize that we weren't stopping and were clicking along at a pretty good pace!

We ended up averaging a 10:49 for the whole thing, which is pretty impressive for four chatty Cathy's running uphill through some wine vineyards and slurping on some Riesling sponges!  Not gonna lie I walked twice during that friggin' mile 11 and through most of the water stops (come on, it's rude to spill the wine).  Sarah was the Wino-Winner though, she snagged her a cup at every stop!  That was my intention all along; however, I mentioned things change...yeah, probably shouldn't have had two cups of coffee before the race.  The first cup of wine did not agree with my coffee AT ALL and I was really wishing I would have replaced it with a water bottle...these are lessons I learn. However, all ended up being good and no one had to take a bathroom break!

The end of the race was torture, we were all pretty spent but the finish was so close!  We had fallen into a nice cadence and then we were told to move to the side.  My body was NOT HAPPY with moving to the side (even if the four of us were pretty much taking up the whole road).  Stopping when you are "in a zone" (and trying not to die) is NOT what you want to do when you are less than half a mile to the finish line.  But, it was two police motorcycles escorting the MARATHON winner to the finish.  Yes, the marathon winner outran us. At this point I was really regretting stopping on that last hill!  He did awesome though and it was cool to see it so close.  We could see/hear them announcing him as we were coming in!

We decided since we had gone this far together that we were going to hold hands and sprint the finish line together, especially since we saw that we could make it in under 2:30!  Somewhere right before the finish line my kiddos jumped out to cross with me.  We grabbed their hands (well, my daughter's...my son had to run ahead to "beat" me) and kept our pace to the finish!

The kids actually enjoyed this race because they had their friends there to play with!  This is the conversation we had before I went to line up:

Maddy:  "I will miss you, Mommy.  Have fun and win the race and don't get lost (this is her ongoing pre-race advice to me).
Jack:  "I will miss you too."
Me:  "I will miss you guys too!  I will run as fast as I can though, okay?"
Jack:  "....or you could just jog and I will have more time to play....that's okay too..."

Gah, I love them.

Anyway, once I crossed that finish line I WAS DONE.  I wanted to puke and poop and pass out and all at the same time!  I found the rest of my family and friends and we hit up the expo tent for some water, the bathroom, some food, and a big ole glass of wine that I could actually enjoy!

We even got to stick around for the winner's ceremony, which we couldn't understand because it was all in German but we could be proud of them...because how could you not when they are so happy and everyone is clapping and singing to "Stand Up (For the Champions)!"

All-in-all it was an amazing day making some amazing memories along an amazing course.  Bonus was seeing all the familiar faces of people in our running group spread out along the way! I am so thankful to have such great support from my family and friends on this "hobby" called running.....I will post official finishing times and photos once they are up!  WE DID IT!

Madrid in 26 days, 10 hours, 19 minutes!