Atlantic City April Fool's Half Recap!

Two of my friends joined me this past weekend for the Atlantic City April Fool's Half Marathon. I woke up early to pack, nothing like waiting until the last minute! Of course, I had to take time out for a flat mama!

We all piled into my Jeep and drove down Saturday afternoon, ready for a nice girls' weekend!

The hubs booked us a room at Revel months ago as part of my never ending 40th birthday, and we were all super excited about staying there. Much texting went on all week about it! As soon as we arrived we rushed up to check out our room! Check out our view:

Crazy awesome, right? As soon as we checked out the room, we ran down to packet pick up. Amazingly, there was no expo! I was so bummed, I love a good expo! We grabbed our numbers and our shirts, brought them back to the room, and paused for a moment to enjoy some yummy goodness that Eileen picked up:

Yeah, she tipped the box. Didn't hurt the taste at all! I had a peanut butter chocolate cupcake that would make the angels weep with joy! After we gabbed awhile we headed down to donate a little money to the Trump Fund.

Eileen and I played the Wizard of Oz slots, they were very entertaining, and it was a group of machines and you all got the bonus together, so it was way more fun! After a short while, we headed off to Carmine's at the Trop to carb load.

Can't beat the scenery, right? It was a fun walk, about 2 miles. The Trop is not my fave casino, it is very smokey and a little run down, but they do have Carmine's!

Eileen teased me about my collages, so I made her the star! The Chicken Parm was bigger than her head! They serve family style, so we had Ragu and Chicken Parm, and the three of us could not finish it all! We had fun trying, though! Cgech out Colleen in her WDW Marathon Tech shirt! She is going Dopey with me in 2014!

We walked back, a little faster, because the scenery was not as pretty in the dark, and went right to bed!
Had to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the Half Marathon after all! Eileen did get one good shot of the ball on top of Revel, though:

Eileen and I got up early and got some great sunrise shots from our room!

Time to head down to the race, once we woke up sleepy headed Colleen! We took a few shots beforehand, some with fellow Half Fanatics, and some of the girls!

While we waited for the race to start we even got some more photo ops:

The race started right on time, and the weather was amazing. I was glad for my arm sleeves for the first half, it was chilly and the wind was crazy. Eileen started running with some friends and fell back, but after a mile or two, she breezed past us and we didn't see her again for awhile!
We ran into the wind for the first 6.5 miles! It was nice to run along the boardwalk, I have to admit! Our boardwalk here is still being repaired after Sandy, and AC's boardwalk was in excellent shape. You couldn't see the ocean the whole time, because of the dunes, but it was still amazing! At around mile 5, we exited the boardwalk and ran down the street towards Lucy the Margate Elephant. All my life at the shore, and this was my first up close look. She was looking mighty fine and freshly painted! I am hoping for some race photos with her in the background! Eileen had raced ahead and this was around where we saw her as she doubled back. Colleen was worried about her pace, since she hadn't run since Princess, but we maintained a 12 minute mile throughout. It was perfect!
We looped back and cheered on all the people we passed on our way back. We said hello to Lucy's butt again, and headed back to the boardwalk. It was warming up now, and I was slowly pushing my sleeves down. At mile 10, my phone died, with my music and runtastic along with it! I was devastated, because the cheers were starting, and I was up to 9! At around the same time, the wind started again. What? How can you run into the wind  there *and* back? No fair!
At mile 12, the spectators started cheering, and they were very motivating! We picked up the pace and finished strong! Eileen was waiting at the finish, and told us she PRd! SO proud!
We posed for some after pics and got some food! The spread was nice: soft pretzels, Jack n Jill ice cream sandwiches, water, Power Bars, bananas. We posed for more pics, which my friend Gigi, from Running on Candy took for us! She actually found us at the finish! How awesome is that?!?!?

Unfortunately, after that we had to pack up and come home! I guess all good things must come to an end!
Some great things about this race?
I qualified for Half Fanatic Status: Uranus! Woot, I gained another moon! I thought I had one more race to go before I qualified, but I was wrong!
I also got to add one more race to my 13in13! Race #4 in the books!

Did you run this weekend?