This was a fucking disaster.
I've toyed with he idea of running a half each month this year, and this one was relatively cheap and close.
Mellew Productions put this one on. meh-lew might be more fitting as these events are ok at best.
After setting a PR in NOLA last week, I was curious to see how I would respond to a race just a week later.
This was touted as a flat and fast course. It was not.
The forecast was for a cold and rainy day. Fortunately, we arrived to a warmish day with no rain. I struggled a bit with what to wear, as it was warmish and humid. I settled in on shorts, a compression shirt and a long sleeve tech shirt. About 3 miles in, I realized I may need to shed some clothing. I unplugged my headphones and shoved them in my pocket, as I planned to shed the compression shirt at some point.
I felt pretty good until the turnaround. I needed to pee, and the portlalets were few and far between. I finally found one at about 7 miles, but had to leave the course and cross a field to get to it. Ridiculous.
I never did shed the compression shirt, as the route (mostly on a trail) seemed to have cooled down a bit.
Last week, I really enjoyed running without headphones. The bands, scenery, crowds, etc, made it fun w/o headphones. This week...sucked. No on course entertainment, shitty scenery.
Then, it happened, I stopped and walked. I'd had enough. I wasn't enjoying the race, the wind had picked up, and in general, apathy had set in.
I found myself walking quite a bit in the back half of the run. Before today, I'd never walked in a half marathon before.
At about the 11.5 mark, I started to run a bit, and felt the lingering hamstring pull and a couple of cramps.
I did manage to run through the finish line, but did so in 2:25:45. My slowest time ever by 7 minutes, and, 10 minutes slower than last week.
I grabbed my medal and headed straight to the jeep. I was ready to go.
On the way out, I passed a gun show and a "right to carry" info table. Just more stupidity on the day. In that moment, I could think little more than shitty event, shitty town, shitty red state of Texas. Nothing good to say about this one. Bad course, crappy town, etc.
I'll skip this one in the future.
nice splits, asshole.
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