So we agree

 

This is such a nice unicorns and rainbows group

it is not Friday, pfffttt. 

That's the half I was supposed to run, but I ended up in Ottawa instead because I had registered for both by mistake. Lori (Autorunner) did the Run For Heroes marathon in Amherstburg and she wrote me that the conditions sucked that day. Windy and rainy. This woman did great in her first!

That's the half I was supposed to run, but I ended up in Ottawa instead because I had registered for both by mistake. Lori (Autorunner) did the Run For Heroes marathon in Amherstburg and she wrote me that the conditions sucked that day. Windy and rainy. This woman did great in her first!

For sure, nobody is disputing that.

I'm also of the opinion that what you sign up for is what you should run. But I was in Amherstburg last year, for the marathon and I know exactly how things are done there. It's a wonderful little marathon, with friendly spectators and volunteers. They do their best. But I saw with my own eyes runners who had to re-trace their way back onto the course because they had been given the wrong directions (there is a fork that splits both half and full). Lori will confirm this as well. There are few runners on the course and if the volunteers happen to be talking with spectators, they can easily miss a runner and he can easily end up on the wrong course. I was unsure myself and had to ask someone before making the turn. It's not like you can always see other runners in front of you... So if that woman ended up running on the wrong course because of the faulty organisation, then it is not her fault. Bibs were not the same for half and full. The volunteers at the fork should have been more attentive.

I'm not yippeeing about it.  She signed up for the half rather than the full.  In races, how you run can be closely related to your competition.  I have had the great good fortune to win a race.  It was a 5K but I won nevertheless.  At Mile 2, my closest competitor was not more than 10-15 yards behind me.  At that point, I was pushing like hell with the intent of putting distance between me and him so that, hopefully, he would give up.  The way I felt at that moment, I thought I didn't have a prayer of winning if he had any gas left in the tank either physically or psychologically.  It worked.  When I was to a point that there was maybe a half of a mile left, a bend allowed me to see that I had opened a big gap.  If you think I kept pressing as hard as I was before that point, you'd be dead wrong.  I eased off the throttle.  Why?  Because I still didn't know what he might have left.  I figured that if he caught me, I wanted something in reserve.  Beyond that, I knew a hill came at the end and I figured that if he laid himself out catching me, I'd go for it and try to bury him on the hill.

 

As things worked out, he must have been completely gassed at the two mile point because I beat him by about 45 seconds.  Still, I'm sure I ran that race 10-15 seconds slower than I theoretically could have run it because I was racing the competition rather than the clock.

 

In this case, the 2nd place marathon competitor has no way of knowing that she's competing against someone.  She thinks she has the lead for the females and may well have let off the gas a bit.  I sure as hell would.  It's not always about time.  Racing, at its most fundamental, is about beating another person across the finish line and the 2nd place person in this race didn't have the opportunity to know where her competition was so she didn't have the opportunity to attempt a response.  Could she have won?  Who knows, but she deserved the chance.

+1

a lot of people don't understand this. Running a race for place and running it for time is often very different. People who say "you just try your best and see where you finish" have really no clue how different it is.

Is it Friday yet ?

 I have had the great good fortune to win a race.  It was a 5K but I won nevertheless.  At Mile 2, my closest competitor was not more than 10-15 yards behind me.  At that point, I was pushing like hell with the intent of putting distance between me and him so that, hopefully, he would give up.

 

Oh. My. God.

Your closest competitors were 10-12 year old boys and girls who composed 6 of the first 9 finishers. You won a middle school 5K. It was you and one other adult male that had any chance of winning and you call this a "race"? Congrats I guess but lets be a little honest about what you actually won. Give your ego a rest on this one.

I see you just created a new account. Just another troll...

 

I guess it is Friday after all.

Did you bring your L&O friends with you, Goo? Bad Goo!!! Bad, bad Goo!!!