Blame it on the Rain

I completed my first half marathon on Sunday, February 3, 2008, exactly eight months after I completed my first full marathon. My marathon experience last June was amazing—it was truly an inspiring, fun, emotionally uplifting, motivating, all-around cool time. I won’t lie to you—Sunday’s race, was, to put it lightly, miserable. Here’s why:

• It was pouring rain before the race, during the race, and after the race. “This is by far the worst weather we’ve ever experienced,” said Surf City USA Marathon general manager Amy Tomchak.



• It was cold…as in 50 degrees cold. Way too cold for a now-California girl.



• It was windy. And, since I was running right next to the ocean, I got felt the full force of the wind as it came off the ocean (you should have seen the waves—big!).



• It was smelly (not BO smelly, but fishy smelly).



• The course was, I thought, boring. I ran down PCH through downtown Huntington Beach, looped through a residential neighborhood, and then ran down PCH some more before turning around and returning on PCH to downtown Huntington Beach. Blah. Yeah, I was running right next to the ocean, but the novelty of seeing the ocean has worn off a bit after five years and seeing the ocean on Sunday was like looking at the Bearing Sea, not the Pacific Ocean.



• There weren’t very many spectators or bands, most likely because of the rain.



• All of the timers at the mile markers were turned off, most likely because of the rain.



• All of the mile marker signs were on their sides, not standing up, because of the wind.



• The start and finish corrals were too narrow.



• The Expo area with all of the start and finish line amenities (like bag check, reunion areas, toilets, etc.) was too small and confusing to navigate.



• My cell phone got soaked and broke while it was in the pocket of my windbreaker during the race.



• I finished about 15 minutes slower than I wanted to.

Dang, I sound like such a whiner! There were some good things about this race. Here they are:

• The “free” (as in $75 free) shirt that I got with my registration is a long sleeve dry-fit shirt, which I will get a lot of use out of.



• I got a cool surfboard medal for finishing the race.



• Sabina came out to support me, and even though we actually didn’t see each other (yes, somehow she didn’t see me at the finish line and I didn’t see her), her support meant so much to me and made me very appreciative to have such a great friend in my life.



• I didn't have to use the port-a-potties at all before, during, or after the race.



• I can now say that I’ve successfully completed a half marathon.



• I didn’t die.

Okay, so here’s the full story:

I slept horribly the night before the race, of course. I kept dreaming that I didn’t wake up in time for the race and I was late. When I did wake up (on time), I took a hot shower, ate a banana and power bar and drank a glass of water, and properly prepared and dressed for the race (which included putting on pants, a hat, and a windbreaker). I stepped outside into the raining-cats-and-dogs rain and drove, in the dark, to Huntington Beach. I parked at Edison High School, put up my umbrella, and got into the long line of people waiting to get on a bus to be shuttled to the start line. I sat with a woman on the bus who was also there running this race by herself with no supporters. At the start line area I wandered around until I found the bag check trucks and then stood in a long line again (in the rain) to check my bag and umbrella. I completed this task exactly two minutes before the race began. So, I had barely no time to stretch and squeeze into my corral. My friend, Britt, was there running the race also, but we were not able to meet up before the race. I, along with everyone else, was already soaking wet. I looked like a drowned rat.

The gun went off and I started running in the second wave at 7:47am. One mile into the race (8:30 later), I stopped caring about my finish time. All I wanted to do was be done with this race and out of the cold rain and into a hot shower and then my comfy, cozy, warm bed. Just like during my full marathon, I focused only on one mile at a time during this race. I plodded along…slowly. My running shoes were sopping wet, along with the bottoms of my pants. I felt like I had weights strapped to my ankles. I was so cold and miserable that I didn’t even have it in me to look at my splits on my watch or eat my goo packet. I just kept trudging along…one mile at a time. I stopped dodging puddles and only dodged the roadkill on PCH.

Eventually, I finished. I took out my cell phone to call Sabina and see where she was. After 13.1 miles it was completely waterlogged and broken. I found a non-runner in a tent and borrowed her phone to call Sabina and leave her a message stating that I was going home. (Later in the day I baked my phone in the oven for five hours at 125 degrees to dry it out and it now works mostly fine again.) I picked up my freebies, my checked bag, and walked to the bus, which shuttled me to my car. I went straight home and got into the shower and then crawled back into bed for a nap.

Now for the stats:

Finish Time: 2:14:07 (10:14 pace)…Bummer!
3 Mile: 26:45 (8:55 pace)…Was doing good so far here.
7.75 Mile: 1:17:40 (10:02 pace)…Strange place to take a split. I had already slowed down considerably.
Overall Place: 3921 out of 8713
Women’s Place: 1711 out of 4898
F 25–29 Place: 266 out of 887
Age Grade: 48.74%

I'd like to think that if I wasn't weighed down by layers of sopping wet clothes and soaked running shoes and that if heavy winds and strong rain weren't pushing me across the road and pelting me in the face, I would have finished faster. When I ran in my marathon last year, I crossed the half marathon mark at 2:04, so I fared worse, not better, this time around. Hopefully the next race I run will be drier and less windy and I will be able to redeem myself.

I don’t have any pictures from the race and I’m still waiting to see if the official event photographers were able to snap any of me at the finish line.

Physically, I felt fine after the race. 13.1 miles really did not pain my body too much—it feels nothing like 26.2 for sure. I went to a yoga/stretch class on Monday night, which felt good.

I still want to run in more races, just not this one again (I have to prove to myself that I can run a half marathon in under two hours!). I'm glad, though, that Sunday’s rainy race is over with!

Oh, Monday and every other day this week, it's been beautiful, warm, and sunny out.