This may be the latest I’ve ever finished a race recap.
I’ve been talking about half marathon #30 since October but never made it work, finally I stopped talking and just signed up for a race the same day my training plan called for 19 miles. I figured 13 supported miles with other runners followed by 6 solo miles was better than 19 lonely miles.
Tent City is in it’s first year and that generally makes me leery of races. It offered a full, half, 10k, 5k and None run. Packet pick up was a sure sign that it was a first time, small town race- a folding table next to an open van with the shirts and numbers. Did I mention it was in front of a creepy abandoned building?😜
Ok, maybe not so abandoned. The race was a fundraiser for the Printery Foundation which is working to restore the Printery building which is over 100 years old. But until then I think it looks kind of haunted. Call the Winchester brothers. Did I mention this was also the start line? In the dark.
The race started at the crack of dawn in the cold and dark. Seriously, the sun hadn’t risen and it was 34*. Dude, what??? I had my fleece vest from the week before and debated wearing it, I mean 13 miles…I’d warm up right??? I stayed in the car until the last possible moment before heading to the start line to find a port-a-pottie. Luckily I had thought ahead and brought a Knuckle Light with me as the bathrooms were completely dark. I was so cold. Luckily, the announcer said a few words, the National Anthem was sung and we were off.
Miles 1-3 10:16, 10:46, 12:04 I wasn’t planning on racing this- it was more a training run so I was going to happy with anything around 2:24-2:30 overall. The first mile looped us around numerous downtown city blocks before heading out onto the highway out of town. I was kind of surprised when I figured out what highway we were on, we were running on the closed shoulder while the lanes were open. We crossed a bridge and I was wondering where the first mile marker was. Checked my watch and saw that we were past a mile so I figured I missed it. But I never saw mile 2 or mile 3… ok, so there are no mile markers. Ummm? I was feeling an odd tingling in my backside during mile 3- it was more that I felt like the zipper to the pocket on my pants was super cold- almost too cold but I ignored it and it went away. Probably shouldn’t have.
Miles 4-7 11:37, 10:43, 12:22, 11:52 I was slowing for no apparent reason but the reality is that I actually had no idea. I was trying not to pay attention to my watch as this was a training run. I had to look at it occasionally as the lack of mile markers was actually frustrating. I wanted some idea of where I was. Plus the course was an out and back so I knew the turn around had to come at some point but it seemed too far out. I was enjoying the scenery of the back road we were now on but once again, it wasn’t the best road for runners. We now had an entire lane to ourselves but drivers tend to treat this road like a speedway and they weren’t slowing even with the cones. They were down to one lane and buzzing around us upwards of 40mph.
Miles 8-11 11:56, 12:07, 12:20, 12:27 The turn around! Yay! And I had finally realized that I was moving slower than I thought I was. What was going on? Wait, I can’t feel my butt! Or my quads and thighs really. What the hell? How long had I been numb? Seriously? Like I smacked myself in the butt and couldn’t feel it. So I tried it again, same thing. I couldn’t really feel the effort my legs were putting in or lack thereof. 🤣 It wasn’t that cold- wth? My fleece vest had kind of frosted over though, haha. There was a person out there in a tank! Apparently I have zero tolerance for the cold these days.
Miles 12-13 11:58, 11:37 Back to the highway and my backside was finally starting to warm up. But only in patches, haha and those sections were just itching. Oh for crying out loud. As we came back into town, I could see the finish line at the park (different than the start) but instead of going straight to it we had to go around the block the long way.
Finish-2:33:51
Not horribly off my long run pace goal and I learned that I really need to practice running in cold weather. Nah. After getting my medal, it was time to join the party in the park. There was yoga, food tents, beer tents, cupcake tents, local businesses and one of those tables with computers that prints your results. I’ve never had one of those! It was barely 9AM, there was no way I was drinking a beer but I wasn’t passing up a free cupcake. 😀
For a first time race, they did a decent job, they have room for improvement but it’s a race I would run again. Just move the dang start time back. And maybe put up a few more road blocks.
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The second I knew I had convinced Kate to fly to Las Vegas from Texas and run her very first half marathon, I knew I was running it with her, no matter what. In the week leading up to the race, she was worried about slowing me down but I said to not even worry about the pace, we were aiming for ‘party speed’. 😎
Recent events moved the start line up to New York New York but the course still went south towards the Las Vegas sign before turning around and coming back. These miles were quiet and dark as a moment of silence for Las Vegas. Which made the cheaters we observed just past mile 1 even worse. The course was an out and back and this part of the street had a large center divider. Just past the first water station, 3 people just jumped on over to the other side and joined the runners on the way back into town. WTH????! Kate and I and 3 runners behind us were like did we really just see that?
Then came mile 2. We both admitted we could use a bathroom. Waiting in the corrals had been long and there were no port-a -potties near the corrals. So we stopped. And waited forever. Seriously…this was a 20 minute mile. 7 of that was non moving time according to my Garmin. The bathrooms were set up in an odd way that both sides of the course could access them but it didn’t make sense for lines and was causing serious confusion. And apparently we picked the wrong line because the person before me took forever. To the point where the lady in line behind me wanted to knock on the bathroom door. And can I just say that entering a port a potty in the dark is like entering a scary unknown land? 😛
So we walked. We embraced the party speed and took in the sights of the Strip. All of the casinos and all of their lights. Counting the CVS’s and Walgreens turned into our version of the license plate game. No, seriously, why are there so many within such a short distance from each other? And why were more people cutting the course?!?!😡
I took a ton of pictures. Except the sketchy mile. The Fremont area was awesome and worth the sketch mile to get there though. We got water at every aid station and Gatorade. We stopped at a medical tent and Kate had them apply some Icy Hot to see if it would help. Every now and then I would jog in place just to reset my feet. I had worn my old Adidas and they’re too big, not exactly built for walking, my feet were sliding around. Jogging every now and again helped ease some of the pressure my feet were feeling.
We collected our awesome spinning medal and went straight to the med tent so Kate could get ice on her leg. Then we headed out through the long staging area getting the goodies. Once again, no bags were provided to carry everything but I had come prepared- I had shoved 2 dog bags (clean of course) into my belt so that way we could shove the snacks all in those. Then we headed for our Remix medals and then found a spot to rest before beginning the walk back to the hotel. Where was a taxi when you needed one?
