I got up at 4:30 am and had my traditional race breakfast of coffee and hot cereal. Ellen quickly informed me that weather.com was wrong… it was already raining!! After uttering a few obscenities, I got dressed and tried to remain positive. I secretly wished I had some rain gear.
I was also COLD – yes it was warm before I got here! In fact it was 80 last weekend for LA RNR Half.
I decided to wear a short-sleeved tee, arm warmers (cut off knee socks), skirt, cap, gloves, windbreaker. I added a jacket & sweats that I would ditch at the start. Ellen (an experienced racer in the rain) also brought an umbrella.
We left about 5:30 to get to the race early. As we drove, it was raining harder & harder. WE WERE NOT HAPPY CAMPERS!
We parked in the Hilton lot and hung out there until the start. Hotel bathrooms YAY! Everyone seemed to be putting on plastic bags YUCK!
As planned, I hid my jacket, sweats & umbrella and we headed out in the rain to start the race.
Ellen & I had hoped to have our best half finishes for this race but since we run different styles & at different paces, we separated and planned to meet again at the finish.
It was raining very hard. I had nothing on that was waterproof & I got soaked! Nevertheless I was running at a good pace… In fact probably too fast, but I thought I has trained well and could keep it up.
There was water at every mile but I grabbed a cup and walked at every two & took a GU at every four miles.
Unfortunately, this half panned out like the last two. I had no energy for the second half so my pace got slower and slower. When a PR was no longer possible, I started to walk.
The good news is that the rain did stop around mile 7. It was cool out and I was wet so even when the sun peeked out, I was never sweaty. I finally took off my jacket and wrapped around my waist toward the end.
The course was great – scenic, varied, rolling hills but very doable and many downhills. I should have been able to have a better finish time… I was very disappointed!
Official time: 2:30:13
The infamous photos that I will not buy:
After I finished, I was cold but waited for Ellen to cross. I was hoping that one of us had a good day. NOPE! She also did not have a good race.
I found my discarded stuff & went to car to get a dry shirt and socks. It didn’t feel so great over WET underwear. Then we went back out to cheer on the marathon finishers.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lamenting over our half marathon failures. Even the “best bloody Mary in the world” only helped a little.
The day ended with a fancy gala where Ellen’s daughter was being honored.
Half Marathon #5 completed.
Happy Running! How do you deal with a bad race?
Good job, hard conditions to start and you still did it. That guy was at my last half marathon. He parked himself just pass the start with a sign that said :0.2 miles done, only 26 more to go!”
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That stinks how bad the weather was!
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It was a nice race, love the drinks. I love the race shirt too, Congratulations for a great job well done. Looking forward always.
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Congrats Darlene! You’re a rockstar, running a half in rain is tough.
As you know I had 2 DNF’s this year and I don’t deal well with that. In both cases I lost my mojo for running for a while. After the last one I decided to take the pressure of and run for fun for a while and do short races like 5 and 10K. That helped.
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It is sucky when you have a bad race. I’ve had several this year, due to several things that I didn’t have control over. I try to think, well it’s better than not running at all. And I’ve been planning my comeback in 2012
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Every time you race, you get a bit smarter about how to do it well. For sure
the hardest thing and by far the most important is pacing…so, not every race goes as planned…it’s ok!
I say:”Any day you can run a race is a great day!”.
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How true!
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