The Skirt Sports Thirteener

Skirt Sports puts on a half marathon called the Thirteener.  I really wanted to go to Colorado and be part of this great Skirt Sports weekend, but with two destination races on the calendar already this year, I just couldn't make it work. Luckily, there is a virtual option and this was the second year I was running it.

Our friend Stephanie, who moved to the other side of the world last year, was in town. She ran it with us last year so we waited for her so she could run with us again.  This was going to be the first time we saw her since she moved.  I couldn't wait.

We planned our run for Father's Day morning.  The weather did not look good.

The usual suspects were running, however two of our buddies were doing eight and BRF#1, Stephanie and I were doing the Gansett Half Marathon course.

I left a few minutes early to drop water so we would have it on the course. It started to drizzle when I parked my car.

Everyone was there and pretty much as soon as we started to run, the rain came down.

We sloshed through puddles, but kept moving forward.  This lasted for the first four miles. Then it just stopped.

We hit our water stop and chatted with Bethany and KB before we split up.

The run up to the lighthouse was nice. It stopped raining and it was so great to hear about life in Mali, Africa from Stephanie.

Stopped at the lighthouse/turn around for this picture.

From the light house, we headed back to the water stop.  I dropped off my rain coat and fuel belt. Just three miles to go from that point.  As soon as we started to run, the sky opened up on us.  Big time.

All conversations ended. We just ran.  I laughed at myself when I tried to dodge a puddle. There was no point in that anymore. We were soaked through and through.  We finished at our cars and didn't even take a picture.  We did take a minute to compare Garmin's. I was pretty sure mine was messed up. It read the right miles but said we had done it in 2:35. I was pretty sure it was wrong.  Everyone else said 2:23 and  I was with them the whole time so that is what I am going with.

Not sure what happened to my Garmin but knew it was messed up when it read 13:00 minute pace around mile eight and we were actually running about a 10:15 pace.  It has been fine since...

I got in my car and the rain died down just a bit. I pulled into the beach and snapped a couple pictures then headed home.

So proud to wear this tank.

It was so nice to get in the warm shower.

I love doing this race virtually with all my friends. The swag is great and I can't ask for better company for a run. I do hope to actually get to Colorado at some point to run with all my Skirt Sisters.  I am sure it will be a blast.

The next real and virtual event hosted by Skirt Sports, that you can register for, is the the Boobie Run. You can find all the details here.

Did you run the Thirteener?  

Run Strong, Think Big! ~ Nicole