Race Recap: Atlantic City Half Marathon

I’m going to be completely honest. I didn’t train for this race — like at all. Zero. Horrible, I know.

You’ll be happy to know that I didn’t die. I actually finished only about five minutes after PR, which was a bad lesson on why you need to train. You should train. I’m training for my next race, I promise. Let’s talk about this race though.

Expo

There was no race day packet pick up (which was annoying). We had to make a trip down to AC (about an hour and fifteen away) to get everything. It was quick and easy though. Anyone running received passes for discounted parking ($25 down to $5).

I’m really not a huge expo fan. I just feel like every thing’s super overpriced. We were in and out pretty quick.

Race Day

First of all, this race was way smaller than the Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon I ran in Philly last fall (my first half marathon!). At AC, there weren’t corral breakdowns. It was just one big corral.

The weather was on the cooler side (as you can tell, I’m bundled up in photos). I usually don’t like running in the cold because I start to get that wool turtleneck sweater feeling, but it wasn’t too bad that morning. By the end of the race it was getting toasty even.

The start (and finish) line was on the boardwalk right in front of Bally’s. What I LOVED about the race being in AC is that we could use the bathrooms in the hotel/casino. I know, NO PORTAPOTTYS. It was heaven. Anyway, the race was actually a half and full marathon, but we all ran and started together. Bibs indicated what you were running and there was a point when the half people turned around and the full people just kept running to the dreaded 26 miles (poor souls).

We ran from the boardwalk to the highway to Harrah’s then returned to the boardwalk around mile 8. On the boardwalk, the only thing that sucked was that we passed the finish line at mile 9. Things were just starting to hurt and seeing the finish when I had 4 miles to go was like a sick joke. However, I’m 95% sure Jeff Galloway ran past me at mile 10. I’m not kidding. He congratulated another runner for her recovery from the last mile then proceeded to do a run-walk combination like clockwork right past me.

After what felt like forever, I finally hit the turnaround point and ran my way to the finish line. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t train for this race, so my goal was just not to finish last. I took maybe 2 walk breaks. I should have taken more, but I’m too stubborn for that.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend this race. It’s fun running through AC, by the ocean and gives out killer medals (which is what primarily makes me decide running a race). And who knows, maybe you’ll see a walk of shame like I did (poor girl).

Have you run the AC half? How’d you like it? And more importantly, what race should I run next?!