Get in Gear Half Marathon

Saturday morning was the Get in Gear Half marathon. Official time 1:59.34. I was a little disappointed in my time. This is 3 minutes slower than my time last May. I was really hoping for under 1:50, but there's always next time. From the beginning, my legs were dead. That would be my fault from doing a hard training run on Thursday and then going to the gym on Friday instead of resting. With my daughter being sick all week, I probably wasn't getting the sleep I needed either. But having your body in shape is just half the battle. There are so many other factors on race day that you have no control over.

The Weather - Mother Nature was not smiling down on all the runners that came out on Saturday. When I woke up that morning, it was overcast and threatening to pour at any minute. About a half hour before I was planning on leaving, the rain started and it wasn't letting up. Even more ominous was the flash of ligtning and thunder that greeted me as I walked out the door to my car. Cold and rainy, not the best conditions for 13.1 miles. While it wasn't pouring come race time, there was still a steady light rain. When I got home and peeled my wet clothes off, I swear I had to be lugging around at least 10 lbs of extra weight.

Parking - With these bigger races, just finding somewhere to park is a challenge in itself. They had blocked off the park where the race was to start and finish that morning and had all the runners park at the VA about a mile away. I left me house at around 7:30 (race was at 9:00). It took about 20-25 minutes to drive there, and another 20-25 minutes to manuever my way through race traffic and finally find a spot to park.

Shuttle Busses - To get everyone from the parking lot to the start line, the race had organized a small fleet of school busses to shuttle runners back and forth. Now these busses had to battle the same long lines of cars trying to find a parking spot as I had, meaning long lines waiting to be picked up. Last year when I ran the 10k race at this same event, it was quite a bit dryer, so I just jogged down to the start so that I didn't have to deal with the hassle of getting a seat on a bus. Smart move a year ago. With it being wetter this year, I decided to wait in line for the bus in hopes of getting another 5-10 minutes of keeping dry and warming up before the race began. I almost ended up in a bussing riot. When the fleet of busses arrived, I was a little ways back in the line, somewhere around just being able to squeeze on to the first bus, but probably more likely in line for the 2nd. Well, some genius woman decided to pull in behind the first bus, forcing the later busses to have to park farther back. Then the driver of the 2nd bus decided they were going to go ahead and open their doors to let people on, even though the first bus was still loading and almost full. The other busses followed suit, and people in the middle of the line started hopping on the busses in the back. Well, this meant that the people towards the front of the line were SOL. About 10-15 more people were able to squeeze on that first bus, leaving another 20 or so standing out in the cold rain until the fleet returned from dropping off the line jumpers that were behind them. I managed to be the last person to squeeze into bus 1. Suckers!!

Bathroom lines - You have never seen as many people in line for a porta potty as you do at a race. Going pee is a contact sport race morning. It gets dirty. If the person in the line next to you is distracted when the porta potty between your 2 lines opens up, run as fast as you can as soon as you see the knob start to turn. Or just do what the guy about the mile into the race decided to do and pee into the trees lining the course. Classy, man, classy.

The Starting Corral - Corral is the perfect choice of words for the starting line at a bigger race. Just think of 1000s of people (4633 to be exact) all lined up trying to run at the same time. We really did look like a herd of livestock. You have walkers for the 10k that line up in the front even though everyone else behind them is there to run. You have people in headphones that have no clue that the race has even started. It's pure chaos. My gun time was about 4 minutes slower than my chip time (they have timing chips on the back of the bibs that sensors at the start line and finish line can read so you can get a more accurate race time). That meant that it took 4 minutes just to get from where I was lined up in the pack to the start line.

But I did finish, and just squeaked in under 2 hours, which is ok... I guess. Next race is a 10k in 2 weeks. This one just so happens to fall on a rest week, so I'm hoping my legs will be a little fresher. I would love to run the 10k in under 50 minutes. This will also be the 4th race in the Greater White Bear Grand Prix (3rd that I have signed up to run).

P.S. - There was no way I was going to run another 4 miles after the race Saturday. I do feel a little guilty not getting in my full long run for the week, but I was cold, wet, and exhausted. Plus I needed to make sure I had enough time to take a nice long hot shower and have lunch before heading off to work. The rain did stop while I was on my way out to work, letting me at least stay dry that afternoon.