Go! St. Louis Marathon Relay

Today I competed in my first marathon relay. The Girls of 94 (Angela, Debbie, Shelley, and me) decided back in January that we would team up to compete in the Go! St. Louis Marathon Relay. We all had to run between 6 and 7.5 miles through St. Louis. The day was unseasonably warm for April (85 degrees!) and the course was hilly. Who knew downtown St. Louis had so many ups and downs? It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we all had so much fun riding the Metro from relay station to relay station and cheering each other on. Dut to the heat, the marathon officials ended up closing the 1/2 marathon course and re-routing some of the relayers. We waited and waited for Debbie to finish leg 2 and were beginning to get concerned when some of the volunteers told us what had happened. She was one of the ones who was re-routed and finished with the 13.1-milers downtown, while I was waiting for her to meet me in Forest Park so I could take off! The volunteers told me to go ahead and start running even though we didn't exchange the belt with our timing chip. (It wasn't like we were in the running for 1st place anyway!) So I went ahead and ran/walked miles 13 - 20 and met the girls at the Delmar Loop. Angela had started the final leg without me in order to try to make up for some of the time we lost while waiting earlier. I did my 7 miles in 1:17:15 which equals out to about 11 minute miles. I wanted to do more like 10:15-minute miles, but the hills got me! The best part was that they have all the relay participants meet up and run the last few blocks of the race together - fun! I would definitely do it again!

The Girls of 94 pre-race

Me about 50 yds from my finish. Why do I look knock-kneed and can somebody please get me a spray tan?

Deb took this of us while we were all running the last few blocks.

Done!