Marine Corps Half Marathon vs. Erin Brown

So, as promised, here is an update on my experience with the Marine Corps Half Marathon this weekend.

Diane and Me before our races! - Notice the super cool headbands!

The race started bright and early – and I mean really early. We stayed in hotel very close to the starting line, and at 4:45am the music started blasting. (If I were just a normal hotel guest, I would have been angry!!) Since we were running, it wasn’t too big of a deal. The race started off right on time at 7am. It was extremely well organized, and I was over the starting line in about 5 minutes. I was in corral group time 2:30-3:00, so I was pretty far back. It was impressive how organized the event was. I was doing great until about mile nine. I wasn’t overly winded, even tho the course was challenging with lots of hills, and I was actually thinking I might beat my PR, which is 2:34. That was, until I stopped for a bathroom break…surprise surprise (ha, not!). Not exactly sure what happened, but once I stopped and restarted I got really bad cramps right above my knees. This is something I’ve never experienced before, so I didn’t really know how to handle it. I continued a run/walk combo for the rest of the race. Basically I would run until my legs started to buckle, stretch for a minute to two, walk it off and then try and run again. As you can imagine, beating my PR went out the window. In fact, I was happy I was even able to finish it (for a while it wasn’t looking good)… Matt and Diane were waiting at the end cheering for me, even tho I was moving really slow, so it ended on a positive note!
All in all I was a little disappointed with myself. I’ve been training a lot and was hoping to do better. But that’s OK, next time I will do some alternate training for hills and I will make sure to stretch the muscles I must not have this time.

Like I said before, the race was extremely well put together. I think we all had a really great time, even if beating PR’s didn’t happen. I would absolutely recommend this race, but be sure to train for hills!

Marine Corps Half – 1
Erin – 0

Next year, watch out!

Busy…(Such a bad excuse!)

I haven’t really blogged much recently (as you can see).  The only excuse I have, and it’s a poor one at that, is that I’ve been pretty busy. Back up to April…

Matt and I went to Mexico for vacation.  We stayed at a very beautiful, all-inclusive, resort.  The resort was very nice and relaxing. Lots of time to sit and enjoy the beautiful sun, ocean and the nice poolside.  If you know Matt Brown – that’s like his worst nightmare come true, lot’s of time to sunburn.  My bad.  For some reason I was thinking an all inclusive resort would be full of activities, like a cruise. Not really.  So, we made our own activities.  We made it a point to do something off the resort everyday.  We did a scuba class (refresher for me and beginner scuba for Matt) which was a lot of fun.  So much fun actually, that we decided to go back for a second dive on another day! I’m so excited Matt loves diving as much as I do, it is such an amazing experience. This trip we saw a sea turtle and a sting ray – Now he just needs to get certified! We also did some beginner golf lessons.  My dad has been egging me to play golf for a number of years now, and since we had some resort credits to use up, we decided to give it a shot.  We had a ton of fun with that too, and we have since started playing golf together. (That’s been keeping me busy as well)  Because we were visiting Playa del Carmen, it was a must to see the Mayan Ruins.  They were very nice and the trip was very informative.  All in all the vacation was very nice.  Matt managed to stay out of the sun (and use about 80spf sunscreen) so we left with no sunburns.  I think it was just a little too slow for us tho.  Clearly we both have the attention span of an eight-year-old, so next time I will plan a little better.

Other than that, April was pretty uneventful – there goes my excuse about not having time to blog…Once we came back from vacation, we moved right into the May wedding festivities for Tasha and Ryan.  The Bachelorette party was tons of fun.  I mean come on, you can’t go wrong with a bus full of girls, a clothesline of lingerie and tacky light up accessories! The Bachelorette weekend was immediately followed by the wedding weekend.  Their wedding was absolutely beautiful, and I think everyone had a good time from start to finish.  I think I may have had just a little too much fun… whoops! I’m actually a little sad it’s all over.  I made some great new friends...and I think Matt did too!

It’s amazing how quickly weekends fill up in the Summertime. (ahhh I how I love Summer!)  This weekend I’m running the Marine Corps half marathon in Fredericksburg.  I’m pretty nervous tho, as I’ve heard it has a killer hill at the end and I’ve managed to hurt my ankle.  Hopefully I’ve trained enough that I can make it. Then comes Memorial Day weekend.  As of yesterday, my plans to spend a quiet relaxing weekend at home have been changed.  The girls (Me, Shelly & Hope) are headed to OC - I just can’t get enough of the beach! Then the following weekend, Megan, Matt and I are going to see Eric Church!

So now that I’ve outlined the past month and next few weeks of my life, I should have some more content for my blog…no excuses not to follow up on the half marathon, OC weekend and concert, right?!