I went to Huntington Beach, California to race with my parents in this event. They ran the full, I did the half. What an adventure!! This morning we woke up to POURING RAIN. We all debated for awhile about whether we even wanted to go through with this race. But they had flown clear down from Salt Lake, and I had driven out from PHX, so we weren't about to let a little moisture get in the way! Luckily we found some people giving out garbage bags... I wrapped my iPod in a Ziploc bag and suited up. The full marathon runners took off around 7 a.m., and then us half-marathoners started just before 8:00. The rain was coming down the entire race! I was wearing a baseball cap that luckily shielded it from my face, but I kept my plastic bag on until at least mile 4 or 5. It was kind of cool, I actually saw my parents a couple of times during the race when the half and full courses crossed each others' paths. I kept a very consistent 9:10 pace the entire time... Never stopped for water, just grabbed it on the run. This course wasn't nearly as well marked as PF Changs. I missed a couple mile markers, and none of the clocks were working (they were bagged up b/c of the rain). I had no idea how I was doing on time. I was more paranoid about keeping my iPod dry and forgetting the fact that everything I was wearing was soaked clear through. We all survived though!! It was an experience to remember. I heard that there were going to be 15,000 half marathon runners today. It says on the results that only 8402 finished. So I guess the rain turned away quite a few. Funniest thing about the trip is that I was pulling into my driveway in Tempe, AZ, tonight before my parents even got on the plane in LAX -- and we left Huntington Beach at the same time. Evidently their flight to SLC was delayed twice. I don't know if this link works, but here's my results thingie :). http://runraceresults.com/event.asp?ID=RCHA2008 |