Never trade what you want the most...: Baltimore and the Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run

Sunday afternoon. It's been a BUSY weekend! We spent Sat. and Sun. in Baltimore because we were running in the first (annual) Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run. We chose to run it because it's different, you run through a tunnel on I-95. :-)

Saturday we headed down to packet pick-up outside the city. The packet wasn't that exciting - t-shirt, a body cream, and some coupons/news on other events/etc. From packet pick-up, we headed to the hotel to check in. It is freaking gorgeous! I loved it!! Checked in and got to our room which was beautiful. And I have fallen in love with the end table they had next to the chair in the room. Swoon! I want one now.

After we got in, we called our friend and made plans to meet up later in the night for dinner. Then, we headed to the hotel bar for a quick drink and a snack. It was lovely. Everything about this place was fantastic!

Once done our drinks and snack, we headed to the Inner Harbor and just walked around. We've been there so much lately, that rather than look through the shops, we walked around the harbor. It was just a wonderful day temperature-wise that the walk was nice. Our walk brought us back to the Inner Harbor and met our friend for dinner at Pizzeria Uno. Had a yummy deep dish pizza. After dinner, we said good bye to our friend and headed back to the hotel. We grabbed a quick dessert at the hotel bar (cupcakes!), then headed to bed.

Got up this morning and got ready for the the Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run. Got to the race and it was a tad disorganized, but overall nice. There were 1,000 people who came out, which is double what the anticipated. I had a good run, even with the inclines! The race was through the Fort McHenry Tunnel on I-95. From the start, you run downhill, then go back up to reach the halfway mark. Once past that, you go downhill until about mile 2, then back up in the incline til the finish. The start of the race was nice because the police cadets were behind me yelling cadence, which helped me run. I was doing fantastic! A nice 13 minute first mile, then I had a great mile two at 27:55, which is about a minute faster than my normal. I was pysched! I thought I would hit a 40 minute 5k, which would be a 5 minute time difference from June. Alas, it was not to be. I finished with a 44:15, nothing to sneeze at, but I was hoping to finish quicker. It was that darn incline from mile 2 that killed me!

So, here are some photos for ya from the race!

Heading into the tunnel