Lessons Learned from the RW Half & Festival

I can hear your thoughts coming through the internet tubes. Seriously. You're thinking, "When is she going to stop talking about this running festival already?"

Well, until next year, this is my last post about it. Cross my heart.

Some things I learned this weekend:

1. Running with friends, even if we're not talking to each other, motivates me to keep going. When Andy and I separated during the 5k, my pace slowed significantly. A secondary lesson from this is that I need to find some more internal motivation.
2. If I'm ever doing races on back-to-back days again, I need to find some way to occupy my mind during the afternoon and evening of the first race so that I can't think too much about the upcoming race.
3. One of my favorite things about running is the minor celebrity sightings. Bart Yasso, Monica, Mark Remy, David Willey, Summer Sanders, and all the other people I think are awesome and my non-running friends think, "Who's that?"
4. Putting my toe over the starting line is magical. No matter how nervous or freaked out I am, just stepping over that line, moving ahead with whatever measure of confidence I can muster, and soaking in the adrenaline of the crowd makes me brave.

There's probably more but I'll keep them to myself.

Just in case you missed them, here are my recap blogs.

5k: http://bit.ly/1fU2Os2
10k: http://bit.ly/H0TCmz
Half Marathon: http://bit.ly/1fU2A42

What are some lessons you've learned from the races you've run?
Have you ever run back-to-back races? Would you repeat the experience?