Vermont City Marathon Race Review, Part 2

Note: My review is based on the last 13.1 miles, as I participated in a two-person relay with my mom. Last year I ran the first 13.1 so we decided to change places and switch it up this year. And because this is so long, I'm breaking it up into three parts: pre-race week, race morning and the race itself. Sorry!

I woke up Sunday morning at 6:00, after my alarm went off several times and had a wake-up call from my mom. Of course Jack slept in- he was still sleeping when I left the house at 6:45 (the morning after the marathon, though, he was up at 5:00). Picked up my mom and Tom and headed downtown. We wanted to have plenty of time to meet up with family at Beansie's Bus- we meet in this spot every year.

My mom had to rush, though, and get in the porta-potty line then quickly grab her stuff from me and line up at the start. At this point, it was chilly and started raining. Our group dispersed and Aunt Mary and I hung around, watched the start then headed over to catch the bus to take us to Oakledge Park- about 2 miles away-where the two-person relay handoff is.

At this point, I was surprisingly un-nervous and arrived at Oakledge and Melissa arrived soon after. We hung out under a pavillion, drank some water and even got to see the first runners come through. They might need to mark this section a little better, because the 2nd male almost made a wrong turn coming through Oakledge onto the bikepath. Luckily, those watching yelled to him that he was going the wrong way.

We walked further up to the handoff spot. Aunt Mary went to meet her partner and I got in the line to use the bathroom. This is when I started to get really nervous, because the line was moving so slowly. I didn't want to miss my mom coming in.

Finally I got to go and went to the handoff, first I managed to get kicked in the stomach by an overzealous stretching runner. Ugh. The handoff was pretty chaotic. Runners kept coming in, and since I'm short, I was straining to see my mom. I saw her! I yelled her name, we gave a quick hug, exchanged the bracelet and I was off.