Liverpool Half Marathon Recap

A little over a month ago, I went across the pond to Dublin, Ireland and Liverpool, England with two of my best friends, Kristen and Korie. Kristen and I originally planned the trip in order to check an item off our bucket list and do our first international run. We wanted to go somewhere full of history, where the weather would be great and English was the main language. We found the Liverpool Rock 'n Roll Half and Full Marathon, saved up and booked our trip well over a year in advance. We encouraged Korie to join as well and things quickly fell into place. Since it's a smaller airport, flights to Liverpool were pretty expensive. We opted to fly into a larger city and spend a good portion of our time in Dublin, while then taking a cheap flight over to Liverpool from there. 

We really only had about 48 hours in England, so the majority of this portion of our trip was mainly centered around the race. We got in late Friday night and headed to our hotel. Saturday morning we walked over to the convention center to pick up our race packets and explore the docks around town that afternoon. The city isn't very big, so it was easy to get around on foot. We made sure to stop by The Beatles Museum and soak in all of their history. 

We called it an early night on Saturday and got some rest before race day. Lucky for us, the half marathon didn't start until 9am (10am for Kristen with the full 26.2, which we all thought was kind of odd), so we were able to sleep in a bit later than most race days. We grabbed breakfast at the hotel and walked about a mile to the start line. Even though we were there in June, it was pretty cold that morning. With the start line near the water, the wind was strong and temps were in the 50s. 

I love running in new places! It makes everything go by so much faster when you have new scenery. I have to say, I never thought "Running down Penny Lane" would be on my bucket list, but after we did it, I added it to it and then quickly checked it off! They were playing the song, "Penny Lane", on the loud speakers once we got to that part of the course and it gave me goosebumps! The course was surreal...it was so beautiful and tons of history surrounds the city. 

Neither Korie or I trained for the race, so we took it nice and easy in order to soak everything in and not hurt too bad over the final few days of our trip. We finished in just under 2:30 and walked a mile back to our hotel to wait for Kristen (ouch). We showered up and met Kristen after she finished the full marathon at what has to be the most awesome place I've ever been...

Anyone who knows me, knows Friends is by far my favorite show (Korie's too), so when we stumbled upon this gem, we had to check it out! It was one of my top 5 favorite parts of our trip. It was set up exactly like the show's coffee house and had reruns of Friends playing nonstop...perfect place to relax with some wine while we rested our legs and waited for Kristen. Once she met up with us, we headed back to the Liverpool airport to return to Dublin for a few more days of adventure. 

This ended up being my 10th half marathon in the past two years and I couldn't have picked a better location for the milestone. While it was by no means my best time, it was easily my favorite course. And running it with some of my best friends made it even better! I definitely want to do another international race...possibly a full? I still can't make up my mind on that one...