Philadelphia ING Half Marathon Finishers!

Our half marathon weekend was full of great friends, pasta, Alex's Lemonade water ice and running!

We started off attending the Expo on Saturday. Two of my fabulous college roommates, Julie and Kate, came in to town, one to run and one to cheer so we made our way into the city for lunch at Reading Terminal Market. It is a wonderful historic spot in Philly... a few people ate thai food and I ate at a wonderful southern cooking spot with famous macaroni and cheese! It was wonderful! After lunch, we attended the ING Expo where we picked up our numbers and sampled a few different products including cytomax (an energy drink) that we did not love, muscle milk (which is a bizarre name for an oddly tasting drink) and MGD64 the new beer that has 64 calories which we decided tasted similar to Mich Ultra with a bottle of water added to it! We had a blast bouncing around with orange sunglasses which they were happily handing out.

We enjoyed pasta with friends that night and ate some Alex's Lemonade Water Ice in honor of our running shirts and "team" of runners! The next morning we were up early for our start of the race. I for one love a simple banana and a new favorite, thomas's flat breads that are a combination of a roll and a pita pocket with some crunchy organic peanut butter. I would strongly recommend this combo to any runner looking for a good pre-race breakfast!

The weather was GORGEOUS. It started out in the mid 50's and at the end of the race was in the low 70's! We could not ask for a better running day! The corrals were organized well, and the beginning of the race was flawless. The biggest decision of the morning was to wear, or not to wear a running jacket... and finally, both meaghan and I decided to leave them with our cheer team.

The run itself was awesome. Few hills, great scenery, a few good cheering spots (where we saw our awesome cheer team!!!, thanks yall!!), great distance between water stations, plenty of Gu at the energy station, a little bit of music, and a lot of people but spread out enough that we never felt like we were tripping over others. It was also super fun to wear our Alex's Lemonade stand shirts, we were easy to spot and we were running for a cause all at the same time!!! As many of you know, I am not a talker when I run; however, for some reason during this run, Meaghan and I chatted from about mile 5 through mile 12! When you are ready for a race, and you need someone to help distract you from a throbbing finger, chatting is the perfect solution!



Looking forward to the next race... the Richmond, VA half marathon on November 14...in just 49 days! My family is going to run the 8k while Katy, a dear friend from Vanderbilt, and I run the half marathon~ should be a great time!