Baltimore 10-Miler (6/2/2018) Oh, boy. Apologies in advance for the length of this post!
I had...mixed feelings about this one. This particular race is special to me (my first-ever medal! First-ever "long" distance! First-ever feelings of "OMG WHY DID I DO THIS HOW DUMB AM I?" etc.), and is definitely a challenge -- it starts and ends at Baltimore's Druid Hill Park, which, unsurprisingly, is on a hill. So you start the course on a downhill, but then finish the last 1.5miles or so on an uphill. Also some rolling hills between the park and the lake where you turn around, plus Baltimore being Baltimore, the streets are not so great. But the challenge has always been exhilarating, and I've really felt a sense of accomplishment doing this one.
Anyway. There were concerns the later part of the week about the forecasted thunderstorms, and a bit of panic about what would happen; the organizers were on top of things putting out their protocol for before the start, but less communicative about what they'd do if the storms rolled in during the race. When picking up the bibs on Friday, I chatted with someone working with the company, who assured that they'd have people on course, including the pace/sag vehicles, ready to take care of everyone out there. This is an important point that comes up later...but for now, that was reassuring (my sister and I have done this now for 3 consecutive years; the last two, we've been nicely "harassed" by the sag wagon, keeping pace with us and making sure we knew they were there if we needed anything. So we were familiar with this part of things).
The race instructions ask you to park near the zoo, and either walk the mile to the start or take their shuttles. Previous years, we had no problem getting to the parking, getting a spot, and taking the shuttle. This year, I don't know if they had different people or what, but the people directing traffic/parking were NOT effective in the slightest. It was absolute chaos. Parking was completely all over the place (conservation groups are posting pictures and complaining on Facebook about drivers who took no concern of the area and were basically parking on top of trees, it was nuts) and poorly done. We got on the shuttle, only to take forever getting down to the start because they hadn't closed the interior park roads and the bus couldn't navigate some of the curves. Apparently we were lucky even to get on this one; later shuttles just gave up. There are reports on Facebook of at least a couple dozen runners who waited in traffic for an hour to park and ended up starting quite late after the gun.
Going into the race, my sister, myself, and our friend were actually kind of hoping for a cancellation -- my foot is still not ok, my sister's knee is totally chewed up, and the two of them have massively awful allergies that have only been exacerbated by the rain lately. When it was clear the race would go on as planned, we just decided to start and see what happened; I made my sister swear to tell me when her knee was bothering her, I didn't want either of us to push it, we'd just flag down the sag wagon and be done with it. As much as we love the race, it's not worth risking our health for -- as it was, I had to force her to stop in the middle of the Baltimore half last fall when I realized that she was limping, that's how we finally found out what was going on with her knee.
Anyway. So we started pleasantly enough; our friend is a runner, but decided to walk with us for the first 5k, which made the time pass fairly quickly. After she decided to run on ahead, we walked with another woman for the next 5k, had some pleasant chatting during that time. But around mile 6, after exiting the lake loop, I started getting some pains in my ankle radiating beyond where it had been sore before; my sister also confirmed that her knee was becoming a problem. So we talked to a cop directing on the course, who said that there was no one around to pick us up (!!!). And remember that sag wagon we've become so familiar with? Nowhere in sight. So we trudged on a bit, trying to figure out how to get back to the start without jeopardizing either of our joints. I texted our friend, who sent some cops on bikes back to look for us; never saw them. Even the ambulance parked at mile 8 was abandoned (as were most of the water stops). Around this time, my sister popped her kneecap back into place (ew) and decided we'd just finish and get right to the medic tent for some ice and pray that we didn't really hurt ourselves walking on our respective injuries.
A note about this race. Aside from touting the difficulty of the last hill, the website loves to talk about how everyone gets a cooling towel and watermelon at the end. Being back-of-the-packers, this has never been the case for us, even though we've finished within the time limit the last 2 years, but things were especially egregious this year. June in Baltimore is hot and humid, and this year was no exception; I believe temps ended up in the high 80's, with nearly 90% humidity (although it felt like much worse at the time...), and little shade on the course outside of the park. Our friend, who finished well within the time limit (I think 2hr20min, when the limit is 3hr), said they were already out of the
cooling towels and watermelons when she finished. Apparently a lot of mid-pack runners got the full back-of-the-pack experience, there was almost nothing left because earlier finishers and even staff (!!!) were coming back to grab everything. I feel we can't quite complain about nothing at the finish this year, since we were technically outside the time limit, but yeah, it was bad. But worse off, they started opening streets earlier this year, there's only one medic tent on course (at the farthest point from the start line), and several of the water stops were never fully staffed in the first place. It was downright unsafe for at least the bottom third of finishers, especially with no sag wagon to be seen.
So we got to the finish, even with some people still behind us (!), just as things were being taken down. Luckily our friend had snagged some ice and towels from the medic tent, and my sister sat and got her knee wrapped while I went to get our premiums (a shirt and a beach towel; this race always gives them out at the end, rather than bib pickup). Hell, I even got myself a beer, since it was a wheat beer (woo-hoo!), and I felt like it was totally earned after a brutal experience. We went and waited for the shuttle back to parking...which never came. Even though their afterparty went on for another 2 hours. So after a brutal 10 mile race, we then had to walk an unplanned additional mile uphill (!!!) to get the car.
I honestly don't know if I can justify signing up for this course again next year, which really makes me sad. Again, I don't think we have too much room for complaints this year, since we were so much slower, but in general it feels like the organizers spent so much time worrying about the thunderstorms that never came, that they forgot how to properly run the race. And being close to last to finish, it sucks when there is NOTHING left at the finish line (no gatorade, no chips/pretzels, nothing that had been there previously, other than a couple of granola bars and a banana) because race management was poor and/or early runners got greedy (this has happened each of the prior years, remember, even when we weren't outside the limit). Compared to the races we've done in Lancaster, where they're supportive of *everyone* on the course, it just doesn't feel like it's worth our money -- we pay the same amount as the fast runners, but get nowhere near the same kind of treatment.
Like I said, some mixed feelings -- bummed about the overall poor quality of the race, as well as the slowness on our parts, but very proud that we still managed to finish, and haven't been hurting too much (yet...).
Despite how miserably hot and humid it can get around here, I never find myself wishing for the cold (had enough of that growing up in NYC/New England and going to college in Boston, which does have four seasons: fall, winter, second winter, and MOSQUITOES). I do wish we could have the heat without so much of the humidity, however...
(Well, and at least one virtual race.)
So instead, I have been focusing on new races and local races. I have a bucket list of races I want to do and I'll just start checking those off one by one.
