Artichoke 1/3 Marathon Post-race summary

I didn't get to it, but here is my Artichoke 1/2 Marathon summary.
The day of the race was predicted to be rainy and have high wind advisories. As we were driving to the race it was super windy!
We got to the race and talk about disorganized. We parked at the post office, I watched where people were heading and followed them to a town hall of sorts. In there I got my race number, artichoke and t-shirt. But as I was waiting for my t-shirt I realized I was in the bathroom line rather than t-shirt line. And it was a pretty long line for the one stall bathroom. I decided to walk to the corner gas station and use that bathroom instead.

I should have seen it as a sign when as I was shivering, waiting in the gusty wind for the bathroom that nobody in that line had ever done this race.

The starting line was no where to be seen, a lot of us were just huddling behind buildings or in cars waiting to see what was going to happen. The race was scheduled to start at 9am. At 9:02, still nothing was happening. Finally there was a man starting to herd people to an area in front of the town hall. But it was just the 10kers and half marathon walkers. So he verbally yelled out directions and sent them on their way clocking their time with a stop watch. He said half marathon runners will start in 10 min. At that time it had begun to rain.

9:15am we lined up in front of the town hall, we were yelled directions and sent on our way. The race wasn't marked for cars so we had to run on the side of the road. The weather was a lot worst than expected. The winds were so strong it slowed my pace down to 13-14 min/mile during big gusts. The rain was pouring and I was thoroughly soaked by 3 miles. And I mean all the way down to my shoes being squishy. I was miserable. I had trained soooo hard for this race, hoping to PR. I ran 12 miles in 1:58 the weekend before so I was on track for making it a great run. I know weather couldn't be accounted for, but it was really depressing. Each mile I kept thinking of how my husband and two children were in the car waiting for me. At the 10k turn around I stopped for a couple of minutes and stared at the sign. I almost turned around right then but decided to go for a couple of more miles and turn around later.

At 4.75 miles out there was a turn around. I thought yippee they cut the course short due to weather. At that turn around they handed out bottles of water. What was I going to do with a whole bottle of water?! I was able to hand it to some spectator walking near the turn so I didn't have to carry it. (FYI there was one water stop before this at the 10k turnaround.)

Then as I was running back, I saw someone pointed to turn right on another road. Aha, this is where the extra miles come in. I went for it and like the race director said, ran until I reached a gate and turned around. At least this road was in a canyon and was protected from the wind. It wasn't however sheltered from the rain.

As I was running back to the main road, there was the last water stop, a piece of plywood on the ground with some cups of water on it. I grabbed a sip and then headed home. The wind being behind me should have been a good thing, but nope. It was at an angle so I had to be careful since it was so strong and would push me into the street into oncoming traffic. I had read that the course was marked long (well at the gate there wasn't even anyone there indicating where to turn around) so at 13.1 I lapped my watch. 2:23 it said. Which was right on with my slowest half. I ran by the car and husband and daughter were watching me, cheering. I grabbed my daughter's hand and ran to the "finish". And I say "finish" because it was just 3 cones on the ground in front of the town hall. The guy with the stopwatch was in the building out of the rain/wind. So I had to walk over to the doorway, and he read my time 2:24 on his watch and marked my bib. My garmin quoted the course to be 13.35 miles.

We didn't stick long after the race, I grabbed a candy bag and was given a generic race medal. It is a pic of 3 guys running across a finish line. No engraving...nothing. I guess that's what you get for paying only $25 to do a half marathon.

I changed out of my sopping wet clothes and headed home. I couldn't help but be disappointed that all of my hard work went for nothing. BUT, a friend let me know that there was another half marathon in our area on the following Saturday. And as luck would have it, it was still had open spots AND I found a discount coupon for it. It was fate. I signed up on Tuesday to run the Mermaid 1/2 Marathon in Mountain View.