Applefest Half Marathon 2010

6 months ago a bunch of our friends were signing up for a local half marathon that is famous for it's brutal hills and the delicious apple crisp served at the finish line. Taber decided to join the fun and trained diligently all summer long.

He found a great running partner who had similar goals and pace and every Saturday they would do long runs together, eventually running the full course at least 4 times to practice for race day. Here's the elevation chart for the course. As you can see, the hills are intense and plentiful, but Taber and his running partner Rob were hitting Sub 1:50 finish times on their runs so they were feeling good. The fastest they ran it was 1:46:50.

The night before the race we had a pasta feed for a bunch of people who were running. It was a great time to carb0-load and talk race strategies. My sister Naomi and her best friend Jenny drove in from Chicago to join in the fun. This was Naomi's first half marathon so it was especially exciting to have her here.

On race day we woke up to an unusually hot and humid fall day. The forecast said it would be 86 degrees with abundant sunshine. Taber and Rob had been training at 6am in 50-60 degree weather and were a little nervous about the 10 o'clock start time and the heat. Still, there was a slight cloud cover at the starting line so everyone was trying to be optimistic.

As soon as it was time to line up of course the clouds disappeared and the sun was blazing down. I was having awful flashbacks of the brutal heat during my marathon last year and was happy to be spectating this time around! I cheered everyone across the starting line then headed over to the two mile marker.

I was with a lot of the families who had someone running and we were cheering our hearts out as the runners came by. It was fun when we started seeing all our friends. Here's Taber coming through the mile 2 water station. He was always easy to spot in his bright highlighter yellow shirt : )

Most of our runners swung by for high fives. At this point they were all still smiling but I was worried that the heat would soon take it's toll.

Naomi and Jenny were playing it safe and taking it easy on their pace. They were the last of our runners to come through but probably the most energetic!

Next we headed over to mile 10. By this point the heat, hills and humidity had caught up with everyone and there were no more smiles. We heard that several runners had dropped out and a few were taken to the hospital to be treated for heat exhaustion. When we saw Taber he was hanging in there but he was pretty dehydrated and tired. Even though he had run the course several times it was a totally different animal in the heat and humidity.

We waited for a few more of our runners to come through then headed to catch them at the finish line. One of the race photographers got this shot of Taber at mile 12. Taber said he was dying at that point but I think he looks pretty good : )

Waiting at the finish line I was all ready to take a picture but my camera was on timer so by the time it took the pic all I got was a blurry view of Taber's back. Sorry babe!

Taber's finish time was 2:11:01. He was the first of our friends who ran the full race to finish. It was nowhere near the times he's logged on this course in cool weather but I think he was happy considering the conditions and that nobody out there was setting any records that day.

After crossing the line he was pretty dehydrated even though he had been drinking up at every water stop. He could barely talk but he drank 2 bottles of gatorade, 4 cups of water, and a carton of chocolate milk. When he was feeling a little better we want back to the finish line to watch for Naomi and Jenny. Soon we saw them coming down the home stretch. They had paced themselves wisely and still looked great! They were able to sprint to the finish and had smiles on their faces!

Here are the proud finishers with their well deserved apple crisp. The food tent was awesome and even though it said for runners only I think they took pity on my giant pregnant belly and totally let me have some. Yes!

I was so glad I got to come and support them and especially proud of my little sister for finishing her first half just 7 months after having a baby! I hope I can follow in her footsteps and run the Applefest next year after our baby is born. I don't know though, if next year is as hot as this was I might just skip to the end and eat the apple crisp! : )