Fishbowl Half Marathon–what a strange race

WORKOUT – 18.75 miles/2:32 (total)

half marathon race 13.1 miles/1:43:46 (garmin)

This was a strange race for me.  From the beginning….

Since the race was about 20 minutes away, I could sleep in and not set an alarm.  Of course I woke up at 5:20am anyways.  And it was raining.  It hasn’t rained in SoCal in about 7,000 days, but it was raining today.

I didn’t really want to run this really small race, and I really didn’t want to run it in the rain.  But I had paid $40 so I left the house a little after 7am wishing I was still at home.

The race website said the half started at 8 so I got there around 7:40 and found out that the half and the marathon started at 8:30.

So I ate my Heart Thrive energy bar and decided to get in a couple extra miles before the race.  This is where things went awry.  The race was held at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley which is like a California mini version of Central Park.

Don’t mind the ghosts.

So I do a couple easy miles (3.75 miles/31 mins) and get way too far from the start.  By the time I get back, the race had already started!  I had to sprint to the start line and was the last person to start.

The bummer besides being out of breath at the start, was that I had wanted to stop at my car and leave my rain jacket and grab another energy gel.

So I take off and try to catch up with the other runners.  The race had a 5k, 10k, half and full, but maybe 25 people ran the half?  I quickly got into about 4th or 5th place and 1st woman, but again, there was hardly anyone running so that’s not some great feat.

The half course was 3 loops through this park, but with all the different distances running, there was about a million arrows and mileage number signs all along the course.  It was inevitable that people were going to get lost.

The whole first mile I was trying to get situated, take off my jacket and untangle it from my ipod and get it on, get all the crap out of my pockets, it was a mess.  But I got everything settled and wrapped my jacket around my waist.  until it started raining again.

3 times during 13 miles I took off my jacket and then put it back on.  It was either pouring or not raining at all.  I was wet anyways so I wished I would have just left it in the car.

I took my energy gel at mile 6 because I was hungry and wishing that besides leaving the jacket, I had another gel to eat!

So I just keep going, running anywhere around 7:55-8:15 min/miles.  I had planned to run this race as a training run and get in a few extra miles to make it a long run so I was fine with whatever pace.

The multiple loop course was boring, but finally we were near the finish and suddenly I was in first place!  Turns out the leader got lost for about a half mile.  He caught up to me with about 1 mile to go, and we ran side by side for the rest of the race.

Even though my garmin was close to 13 miles, we were still way off from the finish; neither of us were sprinting or anything.  Suddenly a guy with a timer yells to us that we finished the race.  What?!

There were different finish “lines” (really just signs like this but without balloons) and we had both assumed our finish was close to the start.

Results aren’t out yet so I don’t know if technically he won or I did, but of course, he got lost and ran much farther and faster than I, so he should be the winner.

After we finished without really knowing, it was about .6 miles to the starting/finishing area so I kept jogging and figured I’d do a cool down.

I ended up doing another 1.9 miles to make 15.0 miles/2:01 and 18.75 miles for the day.

The whole thing was so strange, but I guess that’s what happens in small races.

I drove home (with the heat in the car turned up to 85* because I was soaking wet) and was starving.  Normally I’m not hungry after a race, but I went demolition derby on the food as soon as I got in the door.

I had half a leftover peanut butter sandwich practically before I turned the car off and then made lunch: about 1 lb of spaghetti squash with marinara, turkey and feta cheese and a monster salad… this was an entire head of lettuce.  Oh dear, fiber.

Now I want some spice drops but we don’t have any.  wah.

Tagged as: race recap, we got ourselves a situation