Crawlin' Crab 5K & Half Marathon weekend aka "the first race I ever took off my shirt"

My friend Kristina told me about this race, the Crawlin' Crab 5K and half marathon in Hampton, Virginia. She was signing up to do it because it had an awesome medal. AND if we did the 5K on Saturday and the half marathon on Sunday, we would get THREE medals. SIGN. ME. UP!

HOTEL & LATE DINNER

I arrived at my hotel, the Best Western, pretty late on Friday night, leaving after coaching my CrossFit Tweens class at the gym (the hotel photo is actually from the next morning). This wasn't my original hotel reservation, though. The Quality Inn apparently went out of business ... and called to tell me on Friday, September 28, that I wouldn't have a hotel room the following Friday for the race. UGH. However, the Best Western was within walking distance of the race start, the bed was comfy, the shower was nice, and the price wasn't terrible. You could tell other runners were staying there, too, by all of the race decals on their cars. However, I didn't prepare for not having many dinner options that late at night, so Wendy's taco salad it is. Probably not the best idea before a race ...

PRE-RACE PHOTOS

Woke up early on Saturday to head down and pick up my race packet. I LOVE when races have race day packet pick-up for instances like this where I was coming from out of town. That doesn't always happen, though. The race "expo" wasn't anything like some of the bigger races, but it had things to walk around and look at, along with cute signs and such to take photos with.

Kristina and I took all sorts of photos (well, actually her boyfriend Drew took most of them for us - he was being a slacker and not running the 5K). Why drive all the way to Hampton for this race? CRABS! The blue crab was designated as the Maryland state crustacean in 1989, so we headed down south for this race (and it's awesome crab medal).

Like I said, we took lots of photos. And for those that aren't big runners or might not know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles.

The awesome signs:

I didn't need anymore race shirts, or workout clothes in general, so I just took a photo of this one. Kristina and I signed up for the SHELL YEAH! Challenge, so we would run the 5K (3.1 miles) and the half marathon (13.1 miles) on back-to-back days (16.2 miles total). Two race shirts, two race bibs, and THREE medals! One of the first things I loved about this race was that my name was on the bibs. Not only that, but if you look at the bottom row, there were little tear offs for the finish festival beers, food (chowder), and t-shirt pick-up. And the bib color matched the race shirts.

Time to run a 5K

The weather today wasn't terrible ... if you weren't running a 5K that started somewhat later in the morning. It was SUNNY and HUMID. At one point, I read that you should dress for 5-15 degrees warmer than the temperature because your body heats up as you run. So I'm running in 90 degrees today. Thank goodness it's only 3.1 miles ...

The start line was easy to find. I was in WAVE ONE! Whaaat? That's for fast people. Clearly, I must have entered a previous race time incorrectly when I signed up for this race. But here's some photos at the start line and the coliseum.

And we're off! I quickly come to realize that the waves aren't actually based on any sort of start time. They randomly dispersed folks amongst the waves. That was pretty nice, so I wasn't the slowest person in my wave. Right before we got started, we passed someone with a stroller. I mentioned something to Kristina about my running goals - to be able to run with a stroller (non-existent) like some of these folks. She tells me that they're going to have to work to pass her today. So of course, as she passes me at the beginning of the race, I snapped this photo of the guy with the stroller coming after her, too.

The 5K had this "animal alley" listed on the race map. There were real animals!!! That was right around mile 2. Definitely made me smile. And stop to take some photos.

There was this hill on the overpass that damn near killed me. I hate hills. I don't run them by choice when it's not in a race. So Kristina goes sprinting up the hill (well, it looked like she was sprinting) and I lost all hope of catching her. But as we near the finish line, there she is!

Drew captured the photo of Kristina waving to him right before the announcer is calling out names of people approaching the finish line. She hears my name and turns around to say hey! before we cross the finish line.

This older lady made this skirt from real crab shells! She also had a matching headband with empty crab shells. We saw her the next day, too. Such a cutie. I also finally met Letty, one of my fellow Team Beef members, in person. She also agreed that the humidity was crazy today.

We done! ON TO THE BEER!

So I already mentioned I loved that our names were on the race bib. People all along the course were saying GO AMANDA! How do they know me?! Oh, right. My race bib. I kinda liked it. Second cool thing was the animal alley. And third? The finish festival was AWESOME!

After running 3.1 miles, who doesn't want to enjoy a nice BEvERage or two to celebrate? There were multiple different local breweries with various beers on tap. Our race entry fee included "samples" of those beers, although the samples were basically full beers. When we crossed the finish line, we also got a "surprise" gift - the red crawlin' crab beer koozie featured in my soup photo. That's right. Our race entry also included soup and bread. I went for the tomato bisque today. It was delicious.

We headed inside to walk around the expo a little more, and snapped a photo with Mr. Crabby himself. I don't know if that's his real name, but that's what I'm going to call him.

YOGA UNDER THE SAILS

What better way to recover and stretch following a run than YOGA! Convinced Kristina to join me for Yoga Under the Sails, which was outside on the top balcony of the convention center (Drew headed back to their hotel to drink more beer). The view was gorgeous and it was free, which was an added bonus.

Some photos one of their photographers captured and posted on Facebook. Notice Mr. Crabby doing some yoga? That was for a photo op. He left pretty quickly thereafter.

Kristina did not, however, tell me that she'd never taken a yoga class. I looked over at one point when everyone else was doing a bridge, and she's just laying there on the ground. She did great, though. Unlike the guy near us who clearly only came because his significant other forced him to. He left about 20min in to class. That would've been Drew if he'd stayed.

Some of the pretty art in the convention center:

Now what?

Head back to the room, take a little nap, go get a pedicure, and meet Kristina and Drew for dinner at Mooyah Burgers. Grabbed something for breakfast from a nearby grocery store and headed back to the room.

SUNDAY, SUNDAY

I needed some protein in my life for breakfast, and this was the best I could do without killing my stomach. It was actually pretty delicious, even early in the morning. Protein, veggies, healthy carbs.

7:32am: Visualize the finish. Because the humidity is already at like 100,000,000% and we haven't even started running yet.

7:44am: Yep. Barely one mile in, and the sweat is pouring. I'm sporting my new Maryland themed TreadBands headband, which is supposed to be a "non-slip headband for the serious athlete." There's like black tire tread underneath to hold it in place on my head and "catch some sweat from running into my eyes" - at least that's what the girl told me a few weeks ago when I bought this. Yeah, it's not working.

8:01am: This guy's red shirt cracked me up. It says: "Slow down speedy. There's plenty of bananas for everyone!" If you've never run a race, there's pretty much always bananas given out at the finish line. Unless you're at the back of the pack and people that finish ahead of you take two bananas. Then there might not be enough bananas for everyone.

8:05am: Beginning of the Crabby Zone - a bunch of signs with corny jokes. I laughed at pretty much all of them. I think I'm delirious by this point.

8:07am: Ok, this humidity is no joke. Or I'm sweating out all the beer and wine from yesterday. Not sure which one, but I'm dying.Take selfie while running and taking photos of signs pictured above.

8:17am: Running through downtown Hampton. Pretty views.

8:19am: Mile 4. Dear Lord. I still have 9.1 miles left. I might not make it. That guy in the bright pink shirt ahead of me? He passes me and says "Chicken is my favorite!" I temporarily forgot I'm wearing my Team BEEF jersey today. I yelled back that lean beef has more protein per ounce. He chuckles.

8:31am: Update. It's still humid AF outside. I'm still only 5 miles in and not even halfway done with this half marathon.

8:43am: Mile 6! And a Kristina spotting! As I jog past, she tells me good job. I tell her "I just want to walk the first half!" She says I already achieved that goal. She's lost it. I'm not halfway done yet. The humidity has made me delirious. I want to RUN the first half. Only half a mile to go before I can walk!

8:53am: The beginning of the downward spiral. Just passed the exchange point for the half marathon relay a few minutes ago, which means I'm over halfway done. The sun is beating down on me and there's not a single dry spot on my entire body. The view here is beautiful, but I'm struggling to breathe, so it was hard to enjoy it.

9:06am: I can't take it anymore. I have to take my shirt off. It was suffocating me. And it's drenched. I literally could wring out water from it.

9:19am: They're handing out jellybeans. Normally I'd love the on-course sugar. But there wasn't water nearby. So chewing these was a struggle. And they were all over the ground, so now my shoes are sticky on the bottom.

9:25am: Yep, still dying. Pretty sure I'm about to cry right now. I can NOT stop sweating. Oh, look, there's Kristina and mile 9. Only 4.1 miles to go!

9:37am: This lady in the pink shirt, she's power walking. I try to keep up with her, but no matter how fast I move my little legs, she keeps getting ahead of me. So then I jog up to catch her, and try to power walk at her speed. Nope, no dice. Chat with another nice girl that was trying to do the same thing. She also said this lady must power walk all the time. She couldn't keep up with her either.

10:17am: 40min since my last photo because I entered hell in my head. But I stopped in the "Bartie Zone" to take this photo. This is the head of Bart Yasso, the "mayor of running" and the former Chief Running Officer for Runner's World (he retired in 2018). He's one of few folks that have completed a marathon on every continent, including the Mount Kilimanjaro marathon. He was on site for this race, too, which was pretty cool.

10:22am: If I didn't already mention it, I do NOT like how I look without my shirt on. I pretty much never workout without a shirt (only if I'm at the gym completely alone), and I sure as heck don't run without my shirt on. I'm not sure I would have made it to the finish line without passing out today, so mark this one down as the first race I took my shirt off. And there wouldn't be any photo proof, except Drew is there to cheer on Kristina. I'm thinking he won't recognize me amongst all the other runners. No such luck. He snaps some photos as I'm finishing, and I'm posting them in an effort to learn to love my body a little bit more. If I can run with high waisted shorts and no shirt, then so can you. First photo - I see Drew, but he doesn't see me. YES. In the clear. Second photo - Drew pulls out his phone to snap a photo. Damnit. I guess I'll pull a Kristina and wave at the camera. This is going to be the most unattractive photo ever. At least I'm not sporting the race bib, so there won't be any other photos.

Incorrect again. How the hell marathon photos does their face recognition, I'm not sure. But here they are.

10:52am: We finished! And Kristina got a PR, so of course we made her ring the bell!

And yeah, totally worth these three medals this weekend!

More beers, more soup and bread, more time hanging out with folks. A few more finisher photos at the festival, taken by Drew.

Saw Letty again today and also met Karen, another Team Beef member. Karen was getting ready to run her first marathon in November - the New York City marathon!