Baltimore, Hon

Posted by Will on October 17, 2011

It was the third consecutive year that a Bramlett has participated in the Baltimore Running Festival (specifically the half-marathon). Brittany knocked it out first in 2009 and last year it served as the first leg of my 7 day marathon.

This year, with Nola in tow, we trucked up to the Charm City once again so I could give Baltimore another go.

After braving the bowels of the Baltimore Convention Center to pick up my race packet, we then set out on a magical quest to uncover the coveted safety pin. First, I have to say Corrigan Sports puts on a very tight, grandiose, well-organized event. Also, the city of Baltimore is full of a bunch of sweethearts who heartily come out and support thousands of strangers running through their neck of the woods. Simply put, it is a very fun event to be a part of.

Yet, I find it really odd that such an event could run out of safety pins. If you have ever run a race, you know you normally are given four pins to hang your running bib from. It is doubly important when your chrono tracking device is a B-tag (a tracking device attached to the bib that tracks your time). Granted, Baltimore requires more pins than normal as they have additional back bibs for the full marathoners and relay runners.

But … C’mon!

The last of our Friday night was spent tracking down a CVS and coming to realize that previous participants facing our same plight had already commandeered whatever pins the store had hours ago. Thus, hotel sewing kits (a combination of safety pins and needles) worked in a pinch.

I have been training in general for quite awhile. Part of the parental adjustment included deducing how to fit in runs with a newborn. As I’ve said before, hopping off of the train home early and running the rest of the way has been the best solution. It has also allowed me to become a little bit more familiar with sections of D.C. I am not the most familiar with (e.g. Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Adams Morgan).

Once I signed up for the race about five months ago, I also ensured I ran plenty of hills (the course seems to consist mainly of grades of varying degrees), made all of my long runs to condition my legs for the heavier mileage (yes, I did run home from Bethesda one day), and kept running even when I was out of town (Florida and California). These three things heavily influenced how I was prepared for last Saturday.

The run was great, the weather was golden. I was a little amazed how much of the course I recalled — that was definitely an advantage. I had two goals going in. The first, as always, is to run the whole time. The second was to run under 2 hours.

I finished at 1:54:08 shattering my time from last year, 2:07:26. This also marked the first time I had run sub 9-minute miles in any race (8:42/m) and I also set personal bests in finish percentage (16.8% overall, 27.2% amongst males). I’m eager to see how this might be reflected in shorter runs in the future.

The icing for the weekend was having Brittany’s cousins Amanda and Amy along for the ride (primarily to spend time with Nola, natch). That also ensured a few helping hands to help keep our little girl in check (Nola, as usual, was very good).

Wherever we are next year, I think I would like to make sure we try to make another trip back to Baltimore mid-October.

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