We arrived in Hershey around one o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday and had a bit of a hard time figuring out where we needed to go in order to get our packets. The email we got beforehand said to go to the Ice Palace/stadium, but there were no signs for the Ice Palace and we ended up at an arena where Disney On Ice was finishing up. One of the security guards there pointed us in the right direction and we eventually made our way to the correct place.
The expo wasn't anything spectacular, but it was organized well and it took us all of three minutes to get our packets and activate our bibs. We each got two tickets to the park included in our packets, so we headed there for a little while and rode a couple of roller coasters. There were on and off rain showers the whole day, so around six o'clock we decided to go check in to our hotel and hang out there until our dinner reservations at eight.
I thought our hotel was about a mile from the park, but it turned out to be around two and a half miles, so we decided to just drive to the start instead of walking on Sunday morning. I'm glad we did because it was freezing after we finished and it was nice to get into the car and turn the heated seats on. ;) We arrived on time in the morning but ended up starting about nine minutes after the official start because we were waiting in line for the potties.
The beginning of the race was miserable for me. The support and spectators were great, but it was so chilly! I wish I had pants and gloves on. I wore a random half zip fleece sweatshirt that I found in the back of my closet with the intention on tossing it once I warmed up, but thankfully I had the sense to tie it around my waist and hold onto it. I didn't end up taking it off initially until mile four and I ended up putting in on to warm up a few times during the race.
Okay so, the course! The first few miles were very boring. You basically run out of the parking lot and along the highway before making your way back to the park, which was the interesting part! It was so neat to run through the park. I kept thinking about how awesome this was and how much more awesome it'll be to run one of the Disney races through those parks.
There were a couple sections where you looped around and passed by runners that were heading into the area that you just left, which was pretty cool because there was a lot of cheering and encouragement going on between the two sections.
Eventually we made our way out of the park and out into the town of Hershey. We ran past the old Hershey's factory stacks.
And on a lot of highway.
I had some great chin action going on.
And apparently I didn't think to actually look for the photographers on the course.
In what seemed like a freezing eternity, we finally saw the Hershey stacks again which signaled we were around mile eleven. I was really hurting at this point. I hadn't been stopping at the water stops because I brought my handheld bottle with me, but I made it a point to walk through each one I saw past mile seven because I needed the break. I didn't want to start walking the whole thing because I just wanted to be done, but I was definitely in pain.
As we made our way back to the park, there were lovely volunteers handing out chocolate as you ran by, which I stashed in the pocket of my handheld because, despite how much I love chocolate, the last thing I wanted to do was eat. We ran across the parking lot, which had a lovely crosswind blowing directly into my face, and looped around the stadium. The finish line was set up about halfway through the pathway in the stadium, so I ran as fast as I could, wanting to be done and out of the cold.
I got my medal from an adorable little boy who also gave me a high five and went to track down some water and this lunch bag full of food. I'm really excited about the lunch bag (I don't have one!) and honestly, I love free food. I've said it before and I'll say it again, any race that gives out chocolate and giant cookies is good in my book.
The Hershey Half has this cool system where they email you once you pass the halfway point and again when you finish so you know your times right away. I never really had a specific time goal for this race, but my general half marathon goal is to finish under 2:30 and I did that with just 21 seconds to spare!
I'm not thrilled with my time, but I know I didn't train enough for this race and I did have fun, so it's all good. Unfortunately, I ended up with some bad pain on my inner right shin for five or six days after the race, so I spent a lot of time resting and icing it. I'm hoping to try to go out for a short run tomorrow and see how it feels. But anyway, I'm very happy with my experience at the Hershey Half. It was organized very well and the course really was beautiful this time of year. It was less hilly than I expected it to be (yay!) and there were plenty of water and restroom stops. Plus, look at this adorable magnet I got for my car!
