I had the opportunity to run a half marathon with the company, Race 13.1 in Wilmington, NC the weekend of February 21, 2016. Race 13.1 is a fairly new company, two years old and run races in the Southeastern part of the country.Wilmington is a beautiful city located about twenty minutes away from several beaches. The downtown area has a lovely waterfront walk while the city has several trails for runners, walkers, bikers, etc. One of these trails, The Gary Shell Cross-City Trail was part of the race course. Once this trail is 100% complete, it will run from downtown Wilmington to Wrightsville Beach. The race itself sponsored a 5 and 10K along with the half marathon.

Packet pick-up was extremely easy and held at Omega Sports who had friendly staff and volunteers. Saturday was spent trying to figure out the course map which was a bit confusing due to turnarounds and the shorter distance races.The runner's village was small however it was nicely set up and there was a pre-race exercise warm up. I decided to stay with a pace group for this race. The race started promptly on time after the national anthem and we were off. I was doing well with the pace group and for the first 2 miles we were running to the trail. The trail covered most of the miles however we did run about 2 miles on the campus of University of North Carolina Wilmington. The campus beautiful and some of the college students were at the water stops cheering us on. The weather was perfect, mid 70s and sunny. I was doing well with the pace group until about mile 10 and then I lost my steam. I dropped back, a bit disappointed however at this point in the race, we were back on the trail and I really enjoyed the beauty of it being myself. I finished with my normal race time for a half, a bit disappointed but realized that it was my first half of 2016 so I can only get better! :)

After the race in the race village, there was water, oranges, bananas and even Domino's Pizza! The race ended promptly at 10:30 am with a $1000 drawing in which every runner was entered however you had to be present to win! I loved this race and the Race 13.1 has numerous other races that I'm thinking about adding to my race schedule. I love the medal with the fish which is so appropriate for Wilmington! I also like that we received a virtual medal to share.