Notes
2013 Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon - Washington, DC
I started the morning with my usually peanut butter, chia and jelly sandwich, but put it in a Ziploc bag for my Metro ride in to DC rather than eating it at home like usual. After getting dressed and throwing some extra clothing and drinks into my drop bag, I hit the road at 5:30 AM to drive to the Vienna Metro station to catch the ~5:50 AM train to Federal Triangle.
Walking out on to Constitution street in the dark, I began searching for the bag drop and made the obligatory head stop number one. I continued to wander around after I dropped my bag off and (unsuccessfully) looked for a few friends that were running the race as well. Since it was approaching race time, I found my way to my starting coral – number 9 (?) – and discovered that the porta potties were now divided amongst the corals, which about 4-5 per coral. This led to a massive line of people snaking its way back and forth across the width of the coral. I got in line for my final pre-race head call and began to wait. The National Anthem was sung and I continued to wait in line with most of the rest of my coral. Then the corals ahead of me began to start every 2-3 minutes. I continued to wait with most of my coral. Eventually, it was time for my coral to start, but due to the clusterf_ck created by the coral toilet issue, I continued to wait. I eventually got in and started my race approximately 10 corals late.
The sheer number of people in this race was overwhelming since I’d only run much smaller races with no more than 4,000 runners. I spent the first 3-4 miles doing the usually fight through lots of people who clearly started WAY before they should have and/or estimated their finish times to be significantly faster than they were able to run. Sometime around this point, I actually passed a walker, who clearly was only walking. I’m not sure if she started in the first wave or two, but she clearly had no business being in the front to start. I’d settled in to about a 7:50ish pace and was constantly dodging and skipping around people to keep making my way forward.
Since I was only running this race as a “training race,” I’d planned to finish in 1:45:00-1:50:00, but once I started, the race day instincts kicked in and I was trying to run as good of a race as I could. I still had my unannounced personal goal of running a 1:40:00 in my head. At around mile 8 or 9, I’d worked far enough forward that the crowds of runners ahead of me thinned out somewhat, and I started to think that a 1:40:00 might actually be possible, so I started pushing ahead harder. Ultimately, it was too little, too late, and I finished with an official finish time of 1:42:25 – a new PR and overall a good run. Had I gotten a better start or maybe entered a less conservative finish time (and associated coral), I’m pretty sure I could have beaten 1:40:00. All in all this was a fun event, with crowds gathered to watch the race all through town. Some even offered free beers or mimosas to runners on the course, but I didn’t stop for any. The bands along the course were entertaining for the minute or so you could hear them as you passed by. I may try to stick to smaller events in the future, but this was a good experience overall and I ended up with a new half marathon PR.