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I was just a teensy bit tired after only two hours sleep, but I got up this morning and headed down to the oceanfront to volunteer at the 7th annual Virginia Beach Rock n Roll Half Marathon. We had to report to the start line at 4 am.

I got there right on time and we stood around for a while waiting for our assignments. I was assigned to the starting corrals, and volunteered to be a captain! It sounded very important but totally wasn’t.

There were over 20,000 people running the half today, so obviously they couldn’t all start at the same time or we’d have a stampede. That’s where the corrals come in. The corrals are separated by estimated finishing times and the groups start in waves.

The wheelchair racers left at 6:40, then the elite women runners at 6:50, then the first corral at 7. Each corral is numbered, and the bib numbers correspond to them, like corral 2 is 2000-2999. I was in number 14, which was a finish time of 2:15 (two hours 15 minutes).

The other three people in my corral were from India, a family that had come to the states for six weeks to visit their son/brother in Arizona and flew to Virginia Beach for the race. They were awesome people and I really enjoyed talking with Amba, the matriarch of the family. We set up our signs and ropes and waited for the sun to come up and the runners to all get there. It got insanely crowded after a while.

Finally the groups started moving forward and next thing you know, we were at the start line.

I was extremely excited to find out early in the day that one of the race announcers was none other than my hero and fellow slow runner, John Bingham. He was totally smiling at me here haha. He could feel the fellow penguin vibe wafting off me.

He said we were the best looking group of the day. I totally agree!

And we’re off! The energy of the crowd was high and extremely contagious. There were runners dressed like Elvis (in a wig and full studded white bodysuit), Sponge Bob (with a box totally enclosing half their body) and the pace setter for my group was a pirate complete with hook hand.

There were of course tons of entrants running for charity. The Team in Training was out in full force, there were hundreds of them there. There was also a Hokie Memorial Fund “Run for 32” group that they announced over the loudspeaker. After our corral was gone, I spent the rest of my shift cleaning up trash, breaking down fences and rolling up banners, but not before I cheered on the walkers in the last corral. Yay for the back of the pack!

Check out the site for the race results and some amazing photos in the photo gallery. I hope I’ll be out there next year, we shall see!

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