Because I was running TOWARDS the start when the gun went off, I actually managed to duck in pretty close to the front of the crowd. That was pretty much the most exciting thing to happen for the first few miles. This part of the course was shady, and we went by two strip clubs, all sorts of factories, and oodles of road construction. I have no idea who made up this course. Anyway, I was cruising along according to my plan, and it had stopped pouring rain, so life was good.

The water stops were distributed somewhat randomly along the course, and they were in terrible shape. There was a logjam at every one, and almost never enough cups to go around. At the second water stop, I reached out for some gatorade and the dude holding the cups turned around to talk to someone. I literally had to chase him down to get my drink. This made me pretty unhappy, because I lost about 20 seconds trying to get my refreshment! At the next stop there were no cups out at all, and a volunteer standing in front of the table doing nothing. Or maybe he was gaurding the Gatorade bottles, who knows. But I was sick of this water stop crap. So I spotted a half full bottle of Gatorade, and I snagged it. Hey, it's not like they were filling cups with it! After this I was set for the race.

My stomach was feeling pretty full, so I decided not to take my Gu at mile 7. I haven't been using them in training very often. This was probably not the best idea, because I really started to feel zapped going up the hill at mile 9. Since I am used to running hills, this was probably a fueling issue. Took my Gu and just tried to keep moving until mile 9.5, because I knew the course flattened out after this.

The last few miles of the race got tough for me, because I once again had the Stabbing Pains of Doom shooting through my head. If there is a medical term for this, somebody please let me know. It used to happen in training, but now it only seems to happen at half marathons (when I get my HR up in high zone 3 for a sustained period of time). It's not a hydration issue, that's all I know. Anyway, I had about 4-5 of these pains, but at this point I was getting pretty close so I just tried to keep my effort up. Looks like my HR did drop a little bit towards the end once this happened.

Take my Gu! I was happy with where I was mentally with this race, but I still need to learn how to focus a little better.

Walking to find Steve at the finish, and about a .5 mile walk back to the car.


Here is the course map from my Garmin: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/map.asp?route...

Areas for improvement: They need to work out the timing for the shuttle buses. Also, the water stops need to be managed better. For a race of this size, there should either be more tables or tables on both sides of the road. And they need women's sizing t-shirts! I say this for almost every race, though.
Good points: Nice finisher medals, decent quality shirts, gear check-in was nice. Fair amount of spectators given the weather. I would do the half marathon again.