This was my 4th year running this one so not alot of surprise. They did start us an hour earlier than the previous year so it was warmer for that time. This wasn't an A race and from my previous experience I knew that the crowd starts fast so we (me and my running partner) strategized not to get carried away with them because this was more of a training run kicked up a notch - we still had to go back to our training schedule for our October marathon so we didn't have to prove anything to anyone out there!

Things generally went without a hitch and we encountered a number of folks we wanted to get away from - funny breathing guy, body odor guy, etc. Not too many people were dressed up for the theme in the 30k - i didn't as 30k is just too far to go wearing fairy wings or other non-running garb - too many chafing possibilities. But we saw a good portion of the 15k race and lots of them were dressed up. It was a nice distraction and we cheered for a few of them.

It was also nice this year that it didn't get fully dark until about 1k from the end so i didn't have any navigational issues. We were still doing well and keeping a reasonable pace at 21 and i thought i was getting fatigued. I was drinking at every aid station past 18k (my fuel belt bottles had run out). But I managed to keep the pace up as we were getting closer and then we just had a km left. We both picked up the pace. I nearly got stuck behind some 15kers but managed to sprint in the last 300m or so. I haven't had a good kick at the end of a race in a while. I wasn't as fatigued as I thought! It was good enough to finish 6 minutes better than last year and we were only 2 minutes or so off the 30k time in March which we had trained for as an 'a' race.

Not too much. I was happy with the effort. I am surprised that I was thinking that i would pooch out. Need to work on the positive mental stuff.

Okay, here's where it gets embarrassing. I managed to sprint to the end and get across the finish and then i was just short of the medal hand out when my stomach clenched. I moved over to the grass and lost my lunch!
I was okay after that and went to get my medal and chip removed and such.


This is a good race with a cool theme and the gimmick of being at night. It was well organized. And even cooler is that they gave out stainless steel water bottles at the end instead of plastic disposable bottles.