Running a Half Marathon Relay

Tomorrow Ryan and I will be racing in the Elk Grove Half Marathon Relay.





I've never run a half or full marathon relay, but it seems like there are some good benefits of it. Some reasons I see to run a 2 or 4 person relay are:

1) If you are working up in distance, a relay would allow you to enjoy a longer race without having to run the whole event.
2) A relay could give you a chance to run faster -- of course you could do a shorter race on your own like a 5k or 10k  -- but it's another option
3) To race with other people! Even though you aren't racing next to the person the during the race, you get to have teammates who are counting on you. Plus, running with friends is awesome.

At the Running of the Elk race tomorrow, Ryan will be running first for 7.5 miles, and I will be finishing up the second part of the race (5.6 miles). We are looking forward to racing a little faster than our recent half marathons, especially since we feel like we have been improving on our paces recently.

The last few days have been busy because we had a friend in town. Thursday we went out to the opening night of the River Cats (local minor league baseball team), and Friday we checked out a bar called the Pour House.

{turned out to be a nice night to watch some baseball after the rain cleared out}

{yeah, this bar was awesome -- the booths had taps right at the table!}

Tonight we are looking forward to getting to bed earlier in preparation for the race. I'll keep you guys posted on how it all goes down tomorrow! My goal: hold around an 8 min pace.

I know a few of you have run the longer large team relays based on my last post, but have you ever done a half or full marathon relay? What did you think of it?