Race Reports/Encouragement/Kudos - 3 and 4 December

[Big Vic]

Saturday, 3 Dec

3 - cloudnut220 (Beth) Hot Chocolate 15k Washington, DC

Sunday, 4 Dec

4 - cewait (Charles) LaPorte Half Marathon – La Porte, TX
4 - mousemgr2 (Susan), pensgirl10 (Jan), Las Vegas Marathon, Las Vegas, NV


GO! WISH Team GO!

 

[pensgirl10]

Less than 24 hours now. Changed my finish from 4:30 to 4:15 and joined the pace team. Also moved my daughter to a faster time for the half. I'll be representing with a lime green Mickey on my bib.

 

[Vickibean]

Ready to rock the strip tonight. I'm coming off an injury, but I should be able to walk the 1/2. Rundisney was at the expo with all the medals. Hopefully, this isn't the only time I hold a Goofy medal!

 

[jmasgat]

Good luck, everyone. Let us know how you did. Keeps us all focused on why we are training!

 

[johde]

Good luck eveyone.

 

[paxsarah]

Good luck, everyone! Pensgirl, I hope you easily breeze past that time requirement for the full!

 

[mandac]

Just got back from the Rock and Roll half in Las Vegas. It was a mess! Very poorly organized.

Pensgirl10: I hope you had a better experience than most of the marathoners.

 

[pensgirl10]

Thanks Sarah!

Manda, how did you do? I had a better experience than some for sure but no, not a good one. I don't feel bad about not making my goal - there is always another race - but am a little sick over how much money I spent for what was supposed to be something once-in-a-lifetime for us, but wasn't.

Rock & roll and Vegas sounds fun and my biggest complaint is that my 18-year-old ended up not having fun in her first half. She didn't make her goal, it was so crowded she couldn't get to her corral or pacer and was stuck behind slower runners. Top 100 in a division of 954 is very good but I feel she should have been top 20.

I missed my goal of 4:15 as well as the cut-off of 4:30 but it didn't matter since I was on pace at the halfway point. Got sick pretty early and couldn't drink/keep down even water. I ran through it till 18 or so, barely, and then lost it. Walked a lot, didn't care. Almost went to the medical tent but not finishing wasn't an option. I ended up a bit past 5:01, YES just behind Kate Gosselin of Jon & Kate + 8. As one of my friends put it, insult, meet injury.

I often have stomach problems while running. Rumor has it that way too many people were sick though and there might have been an issue at the water stations. We'll never know. What I do know is that I'll never run another of these races. No directions to the expo, terrible overcrowding once you got there, not enough for people to do/buy, awful line at the cashier, and they ran out of shirts for the half. Getting to the race: buses stopped early and people were walking for miles or hitchhiking, we walked a long time before detouring to a hotel and their taxi stand. The race itself: I don't have enough time to tell and you don't have time to read everything that went wrong. LOL Slowing down meant I missed a lot of the trouble though. Faster racers either made it through in time or hit the wall of half marathoners at the merge point.

I went to the medical tent then skipped the pic/food mess but hear that was screwed up too, and they ran out of medals. We had a lot of trouble at the hotel, got turned away to the parking garage - we weren't parked there and it was COLD, up and down long flights of steps, owie. But better there than with the people who were trapped inside for as long as 2 hours. We saw ambulances arriving to treat those who fainted in the close quarters.

Long story short: too many people, not enough planning.

This was the first time I finished a race, no matter how bad I felt, without scheming within five minutes about "next time". It took 15 hours. LOL