Two weeks
ago, I completed a half marathon race during the 26.2
with Donna – The National Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer
in Jacksonville, FL. I’ve mentioned previously
that the mission of the 26.2 with Donna is “to passionately produce world class
events to raise funds for ground breaking breast cancer research and empower
women living with breast cancer.” Donna
Deegan, a Jacksonville, Florida native and a former news anchor on First Coast
News, created the 26.2 with Donna – The National Marathon to Finish Breast
Cancer in 2006. Donna
herself is a three-time breast cancer survivor, who was first diagnosed in 1999
at the age of 38 and again in 2002 and 2007. She created The Donna Foundation in an effort to
raise research dollars and to bring awareness to women who battle breast cancer
and to provide help to cancer patients who have difficulty meeting their
financial needs. If you are looking for a race with a positive message
and you like to run for a cause, then this is the race for you. I’m pretty sure that you’ll have as much fun
as I did. Anyways, here a quick recap of
my race experience.
The Expo:
Saturday
afternoon I headed to the Prime Osborne Convention Center for the 26.2 with
Donna Expo and Packet Pickup. I always look forward to any race expo because of
all of the various vendors that show up. I spent about 2 hours at the expo bouncing
from booth to booth checking everything out. I bought some deep discounted running
t-shirts, a pair of compression sleeves for my legs and some Jelly Belly sports
beans for extra energy along the course.
On my way out of the expo, I stumbled upon a booth called Fellow Flowers. There were 2 warm and friendly ladies selling
really cute logo t-shirts in various colors and bright cloth-like flowers that
you can wear in your hair. The booth was
buzzing with so many women, so I had to check it out. I almost left the expo at that time because I
got a call from my BF, but I’m glad that I didn’t. I needed up getting myself a t-shirt and
something for my mom who’s birthday is coming up. If you have chance, check out their website
for some running inspiration and shopping.
So, the best part of me stumbling on this booth was that finally I got
to meet Donna Deegan in person. She just
happened to be stopping by the booth to meet the two ladies at the booth. I have to say that meeting Donna was the highlight
of the race weekend. She was super sweet
and took a bunch of photos with other admirers and running enthusiasts. 
After I left the expo, I met up
with some friends for lunch and then I went home to rest up for the next
day. I gathered all of my running gear
and laid everything out for easy access and a quick change in the morning. I had a quick pasta dinner and decided that I
needed go to bed pretty early since I had to wake up at 4:30am.
The Race:
When the alarm when off at 4:30am on
Sunday morning I hit the snooze button a few times. No matter how early I go to bed, getting up
at 4:30am is never easy. Once I finally
woke up, I toasted two waffles added some peanut butter on them and got dressed
pretty quickly. I was determined to be
on the road by 5:30am. I walked out the
door with my waffles in hand along with a cup full of Naked Green Machine
smoothie drink (my favorite). When I got
on the road, I was pretty excited because there appeared to be no traffic. I thought to myself, I love it when things work
out the way I planned out in my head. My
reflection was short lived by the time I got to Jacksonville Beach. As soon as I got off of Butler Blvd and
turned onto A1A, I saw the traffic that everyone warned me about at the
expo. Apparently everyone got the same
memo to leave early because I sat in traffic for the next hour. Luckily, I left early enough that I didn’t
think I was going to be late since the race was scheduled to start at 7:30am,
but I was still a little nervous.
While I sat in traffic, two of my
friends called to let me know they were just getting to the traffic. At that
point, I figured that they were going to be late for the race. After fighting my way to merge from 2 lanes
into 1, I was finally able to park. I
still had about an hour to spare until I made a quick visit to the long lines
of porta potties. My friends called
again to give me an update of their location, but they were still pretty far
away and still sitting in heavy traffic.
I made my way to the corrals and lined up while constantly keeping an
eye out for my friends. At 7:15am, I
started to stretch and warm up for the race and chatted with some ladies from
South Carolina. Finally after a long
wait, the race officials made an announcement that they were pushing the start
time to 7:45am to allow for the people sitting in traffic to get parked and
settled at the start line. My friends eventually
made it to the start line around 7:45am and snuck into the corral with me. A few minutes later, the race officials made
another quick announcement that the race was going to start promptly at
8:00am. Thankfully, the race started
exactly at 8:00am and we were finally off and running!
Unfortunately,
I signed up for the race late, so I started in the third corral. Which was a
little further back than I would have liked to start. With that being said, I
had to fight my way through a large crowd for the first couple of miles. We immediately started running through neighborhoods
of fantastic and supportive Jacksonville Beach locals. There were so many local folks that stood out
in the cold to hand out bottles of water and Gatorade, various foods or simply
to cheer us on with signs, banners and well wishes. I definitely felt their
energy. Unfortunately, after running
about 3 miles, a friend of mine decided that she needed to stop to go to the
bathroom at the one and only porta potty in sight. Normally, I don’t stop running unless it’s an
emergency or I’m in pain, but I made an exception (I’m still trying to figure
out why I did during this race, but oh well). Our little detour set me back
about 7-8 minutes because the line for this one porta potty was pretty long. After our little detour, we ran another 2
miles until my friend mentioned that she needed to walk and I let her walk by
herself. I was already on a mission to
make up some lost time, so I kept on running.
When I
made it to the beach around mile 7, I ate some of my sports beans and one GU
energy gel that someone handed me along to way.
I really tried to pick up my speed to make up some time, but my body was
slowing down. By the time I made it to
the bridge towards the finish line, I was pretty much spent and in a little
pain. I used all of my energy to run the
last 3 miles of the race over a couple of bridges. All I thought about was getting to the top of
the bridge because the finish line is pretty close. I just focused my mind on the finish line and
focused on finishing. I was pretty happy
when I finished, but a little annoyed with myself with my time. This race just gives me room to improve on my
next half marathon and really beat my time for this race next year.
My Stats:
There
were 4,250 total race finishers for the half marathon and 3,100 female
finishers. My official chip time was 2:17:17
(which isn’t great, but I’ll take it given my circumstances). Have any of you competed in a 5k or a half
marathon lately? Do you have a race that’s
coming up that you are excited about? Let me know in the comments?