The day dawned with gorgeous weather for the race. After a couple of pieces of toast and jam and an Irish Creme mocha I felt ready to roll. Although my stomach felt a little queasy warming up it seemed to settle by race time. My goal going into the race was 1:19:58 (6:06 per mile average) and I settled in well right away. My first mile was a 6:06, then a 6:07, my next two miles were covered in 12:13, and I was feeling decent. I had started out in 4th position overall and had moved into 3rd by 2 miles and I decided that I was going to be in 2nd place by 5 miles, and I was. It was shortly after that that I got passed and was back into 3rd again and that's where I sort of settled in. I hit 6 miles in 37:02 after hitting a bad patch in the 5th mile where I felt like I was going to dry heave, but I managed to settle in and fight that off. I hit 8 miles in 49:25 (6:10 pace) and then ran 12:11 for the next 2 miles to hit 10 in 1:01:36 (6:09 average).
It was shortly after this that everything went to hell. The 2nd place guy, me, and the 4th place guy all missed the turn and went straight on the marathon course. When I wasn't seeing the finish line at the 13 mile mark I knew something was wrong. At about the 14 mile mark I saw that the guy ahead of me had completely stopped and was talking to the volunteers. At that point a motorcycle cop also came up to us and said "I think that you guys went the wrong way." We followed the motorcyce cop and headed back in the direction of the actual finish line. We were both pretty chapped at this point that we were going to end up running 15+ miles. After talking to the race director afterward,we wondered why no one was there at a major point in the race to tell us where to turn. He wasn't willing to do anything as far as changing the results, even though it was OBVIOUS that we would have finished 2nd (1:19:XX), 3rd (1:20:XX) and 4th (1:21:XX) overall. The next time that finished was 1:27.
So, lesson learned. Don't run tiny races with poor organization, and if you do, make damn sure that you know where you're going. This would have been my fastest half marathon in 4 1/2 years. Instead I get nothing but disappointment and frustration.
Other people ran well. Theresa ran a PR of 1:52:08, Jamie ran 1:48:52, which I believe was also a PR for her and Laurel ran 1:34 and change.
Congrats to Monica and Scotty and Liz for all kicking butt at Portland !
I am recovering well, just need to catch up on my sleep !
Next goal: Barber to Boise 10K in 35:58 (5:47 pace)
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I feel your pain... that's a hard lesson to swallow. You work hard to get to that fitness level and then wallahhh... a crappy, unmarked, unsupported course and people that don't give a darn what you went through to get to that level of fitness and then find that the course was the only "bad" that day. Just be confident inside that you ran well... and like you said... lesson learned.... good training run nonetheless. Stuff like this builds character! (not like you need anymore character though).
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