DIVA Half Marathon

My third half marathon this year was at the DIVAS half marathon series in wine country, VA. I ran it with my good friend Holly. Tabitha and Patti were there too, but because of injuries they had to walk it.

 

 

Holly's friend Kari was also there. She wanted to run it on her own so she didn't stay with us at the beginning, but in the end we caught her and she finished with us.

This race was literally one big mess. We left super early to get there and I'm glad we did. We sat in some traffic trying to get parked, but from what I heard it was nothing compared to those arriving later. The race was delayed over an hour because of all the traffic problems they were having; by the time we started my stomach was rumbling. It made for a long race. They didn't give an accurate portrayal of the course either because it was not flat, but extremely hilly. I believe they said an elevation gain of around 200, but from everything I read it was closer to 700. The majority of the course was on gravel and we really just weren't prepared for the hills and gravel. Holly's goal was to finish in under 3 hours and we did amazingly well - even with all the roadblocks - we finished in 2:39!!
Here we are finishing! They gave us the feather boa's and tiara's about half a mile from the finish...

 

All done!!

 

 

 

 

Even with all the craziness it was so good to be able to run Holly's first half marathon with her! It was a great day with running friends.