1. Few days before the raceday the city was full of "no parking on April 2 due to the half marathon" signs.
2. As usual, runners are invited to run-expo to collect their start kits. Dog-food shop was something unsual for an expo for runners, though. Maybe there's some new trend in sports nutrition ? Who knows, who knows.
3. The rest was pretty much usual. Running shoes...
4. ...running outfit etc.
5. No lines to the start-kits pickup - good!
6. Starting number/name check, and the number is yours! Along with a back-pack (you can see some in the upper right corner on the picture).
7. Free beer at the exit from the expo (non-alco).
8. The starting kit included very informative booklet with the race map...
9. ...and the starting area map.
10. The starting area was located around Rudolfinum, which is now the house of Prague Filarmonia.
11. Dog-food at the expo, dog-shaped photo-stands in the starting area, I'm starting to get a little bit paranoic about this.
12. Now stop your paranoia! Humans-only entrance to the starting zone!
13. Free-taping is in demand.
14. Pace-makers gather for their pre-start meeting.
15. ...and soon make their way to the starting blocks.
16. ...followed by Ekaterina Zanozina, who was in the pacemakers team this year as a reserve pacemaker.
17. The starting corridor is fully packed with cheerful runners.
18. One of them is my friend Andrey, who travelled to Prague from Russia to take part in the half marathon.
19. The race begins !
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22. Cheerleaders spotted around 15th km. Made some really sophisticated acrobatics, Very impressive!
23. Prague's tram is one of the city's tourist attractions. However, it's not a good idea to finish your race under a tram, so the runners had to be careful.
24. Some "traffic jams" happened at the food(water)-points due to runners stopping to get their refreshments.
25. People of Prague are very cheerful and supportive.
26. Think this is a new (weird) running technique? Or a side-effect of the pre-race dog-food ? Might be. But my explanation is simpler. Several thousand runners got caught on my back-camera during the race. Only a few of them got to this blog and to my youtube video. Being a runner, how can you make sure that you get your way to the publicity?...
27. ...how can you distinguish yourself from this crowd?
28. That's how!
29. Now no jokes. The runners in pink (magenta?) do a great thing to make this world better. These are the Running with those that can't (RWTTC) team. They make a dream come true for special kids, who can't run themselves.
30. Here's another group from RWTTC just before the finish line.
31. Some other runners before the finish.
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35. After the finish each of the runners got a thermo-wrap.
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37. And a medal, of course!
38. And a beer (non-alco).
39. Did I mention the medal? ))
Cheers,and see you runing!
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