Ocean City Maryland Half Marathon

This past weekend, Mom took part in her second ever half marathon:  The Ocean City Maryland Half Marathon/5K.  The event is a point-to-point race that begins at the Inlet and ends at Assateague Island.

Our adventure began Friday night when Mom and I said "au revoir" to the kids then raced down the peninsula to pick up her runner's packet at the Francis Scott Key Resort.  The resort was mobbed with runners and their support coming in from all over the globe.  With packet in hand, we were then off to the condo to turn in and rest up for the soon to arrive 7AM start.

We awoke around 5:30 Saturday morning.  With the sun not yet up, we prepped quickly then dashed out the door.  At the Inlet, we snagged one of the few remaining parking spots, then made our through the crowd to the start line.  Mom stretched, tweaked her music playlist, and the next thing we knew, the siren sounded and away she went.

The course started by snaking around the parking lot, dog-legged around the pier, headed north up the concrete portion of the boardwalk, then banked left at N. Division St, passing under the Ocean City Arch.  From there, Mom and the other racers crossed the Rt 50 bridge then diverted through a few neighborhoods while basically working southward on Rt 611 toward Assateague.  Overall, the course was very flat, save for the whopper of bridge entering Assateague near the end.

When Mom crossed the finish line, she found herself placing 1173 out of 1876 total runners and 106 out of 231 in her division.  She completed the course in 2:14:24 (chip time), notably shaving about 2 minutes off her time at the Delaware Half last year.

The post-race party was held at Seacrets night club.  While the club in and of itself is something to behold, the parking situation was bad, the line to enter the building worse, and apparently the wait time for food was atrocious.  We benefited from heading to the condo first to allow Julie time to clean up then heading over to the club.  By the time we got there, a lot of folks had cleared out and we actually had a decent time.

The rest of the weekend consisted of walks on the beach, movie time, an amazing meal at Ruth's Chris Steak House, and ice cream at Dumser's.  Yum.

Congratulations, Mom.  You never cease to amaze me.