2013 MOO-nlight Half Marathon (Davis, CA)

It has been a couple of weeks since the I ran the Moo-nlight Half Marathon in Davis, but I was waiting for the official photos from the event to see if any were good. “Good” because Curtis did take photos of me at the race, but they are from the sidelines, and I wanted to see if any of the up close ones alright. But, as any runner should know… If you look good you are not trying hard enough.

This one is probably the best, as I crossed the finish line my legs were cramping from trying to sprint in. Clearly I am not smizing Tyra.

But, for my second half marathon I have to say I think I did alright. I finished less in less than 2 hours from start line to finish! And although I did go too fast in the first half, I knew that I could make it on this non-hilly course without walking. Not once. Plus the participant bling was pretty sweet.

That medal is GIANT… plus small parts of it and the shirt glow in the dark. Which is not really practical unless I walk into a closet, but still pretty cool.

MOOnlight Half Marathon, Davis CA

Date: July 13th, 2013 at 7pm
Finish Time: 1:59:21

After my first half marathon last year I didn’t honestly know if I wanted to do another. I was glad to take a break… but after working back up after stressing my knee from backpacking last summer from a 4 mile to a 5 mile race I decided to just go for it. Nothing really motivates you like the obligation after you pay for a  race!  My training schedule was a combo of Athletica and Well + Good, mixed in with the flexibility to go on nice long hikes on the weekend… which really meant I changed my long run days from the traditional weekend date to a Tuesday.

I specifically chose  the Moonlight half marathon simply based on the time period of when I wanted to do a race, and the price – which is definitely not the most expensive half marathon in California! It was a evening run, but honestly in the time I did it did not get legitimately dark until the last 5 minutes of the race. I guess I did not need to take that headlamp?!

Start of the race in broad daylight. I was by the 2:05 pacer, which is close to my first 1/2 marathon time… but since I was caught in a crowd of 10k runners this was fairly hard to judge.

To review the race itself, I must add that this is probably the largest race I have ever run in. Partially because the 10k crowd started at the same time as the 2nd wave half marathon runners (less than 3 hours finishers) it really did feel like I was part of a herd of cattle. Thus it was a bit of a stressful first couple miles, until the 10k runners split from the 1/2 marathon runners on the narrow course. Despite this I think I enjoyed this big race – the water stations were abundant and had Gatorade in addition to water, the locals sang us songs and made sprinklers out of hoses on the race course, and you never ever felt very alone out there. Since I was not running with Curtis on this one I was very happy to not feel completely alone on that last couple miles.

Posing with the moon! The moon on the medal and the moon in the sky were actually backwards, but let’s not sweat the small stuff.

I was pretty excited to try the Sudwerks Brewery beer after my finish – a great way to end a night!

All in all I would recommend this one for anyone looking for a summertime half marathon, especially if you are interested in a flat course, large medals, or night time running. Who knows, maybe next year Curtis might even want to run it with me?!  After all, this time around I am actually looking forward to my next big race… although I know it will be a while since I have all summer and fall to focus on backpacking until the next race ;)