Santa Hustle 13.1 Daytona Beach, FL
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| !!SANTA!! |
It’s been a long time since I have had to do a negative race
review so I may be a little rusty.
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| Bonnie and I before the deer attack. |
Whoever advertised this race must have been hitting Santa’s special
bottle or getting into the Rudolph flying dust.
The website states:
“A large after party offering a buffet of food and plenty to
drink” Hogwash!!
Granted the after party
was in a huge room but other than that nothing was impressive or huge about
it.
The room was almost completely
empty.
There was one table with cookies
and one with coffee.
Volunteers and
staff were nowhere to be found.
If you
finished later than me there was no coffee.
There was free beer (if you wanted to wait the 30 minutes it took for
the staff to go back to the freezer).
Other
than the two tables there was NOTHING else in the room.
It looked sad and pathetic.
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The HUGE after party!!!
!!FAIL!! |
“There will be timing clocks at each mile marker along the
course and the start and finish lines.” What
mile markers. I think I saw 1 maybe 2
the whole race. The only timing clock I
saw was on mile 6. Pass the pixie dust
please.
“(Post race) There will be breakfast and concession food
available as well” LOL If you consider only cookies, one small tray
of donuts holes and empty coffee containers “breakfast and concession food”
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| !!Classy race result postings!! |
“Thousands of runners dressed like Santa” At best they had 80 half marathoners. More of Santa’s special bottle please.
“Festive music” and “and music along the course “ The ONLY place
having any form of music was the run start/end.
Granted in the morning there was some festive music but at the race end
I don’t count “Gangnam Style” as festive.
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| Bonie and the Snowman |
“Candy, Cookie along the course” They did have one station with cookies and
one with M&Ms but no water to drink them with. You try eating dry cookies
in Florida 85 degree heat while running a 13.1 with NO WATER.
Speaking of water…
They ran out if it when I was running the course. Keep in mind I am a middle of the packer so that
means 50% of the people did not get water later in the race. They did still have Gatoraid. But they took down many of the aid stations BEFORE
everyone finished the race so many people did not even have aid stations at the
end of the race.
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| The ENTIRE run was on the beach |
Speaking of Aid Stations:
Each station had at best 2 volunteers.
Most had one volunteer. I felt
bad for them trying to do all that work by themselves. You try handing water out to 20 people at a
time with only 1 maybe 2 volunteers at the water station.
“From the Windy City to the warm beaches in the Sunshine
State,” You bet it was warm. The race did not start to 9AM (5K at 9:30AM). That means the outside temperate at race
start was in the mid-80s. Why would you
ever start a race in FL at 9AM. It’s too
late. It gets hot and traffic on A1A (the
only road) starts to get really busy around race end.
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Notice the deflating finish line.
They had to hold it up for some finishers!!
Luckily they fixed it later. |
Speaking of Traffic...
The cops decided to leave BEFORE the race ended so 50 meters before the
finish line you had to stop and wait for the light to change. Nice.
“Free hat, beard and customized shirt.” There were at least three different shirt
materials floating around. My wife got a
tech shirt and I got a shirt that was apparently made from roofing insulation. Mine
was hotter than heck. The hat and beard
were of VERY poor quality and would not hold up through the race so I did not
wear mine. Beard fuse was coming off as
soon as I pulled it out of the race bag.
Bonnie red shirt bleed and stained her race bra red. Those shirts went straight into the
trash. I do not want any pink underwear.
This race had HUGE potential but was a huge let down. Maybe the 5K was better but I will not be
doing the race again next year.
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| X-mas Florida Style |
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| More Half Fanatics |
I can't stop laughing. I mean seriously can't stop laughing. Just when I thought the reference to Gangman Style being festive was hilarious it just got better. Well, your running loss is our reading gain. I'm set to do one next week in Indy. I'll have to let you know how it goes. You know what might be fun is to stick that beard in your washing machine with the darks. HAHAHAHAHA!
ReplyDeleteWow. That is a HUGE fail. Good thing that's not on my list of races to do.
ReplyDeleteCongrats for making it through the less than ideal conditions!
Sounded pretty lame lol.... the medals were nice at least I guess. Good job on grabbing 3rd place in your AG!
ReplyDeleteI ran this too. It was horribly hot. I mean, most half marathoners in Florida are done with their race by 9:00am, not starting one. Perhaps this is okay in the northern states, but um...hello! NOT in FL. This was not my first half marathon, but by the end of it, I was vomiting, cramping in both legs, and lightheaded. I considered getting a course marshal for help, but I didn't see any. By mile 8, I figured I'd just have to walk it in best I can and hope for the best. By the time the crossing guard at the finish got done yelling at me to hurry up and run because of the traffic light (um...lady, I'm cramping in both legs, and I can't see straight), I was hoping to see a medical tent. NONE. I'll help myself to some water. NONE. People were still coming in behind me, and there was nothing for them, either. It took me an hour longer to finish this race than other half marathons I've done. FAIL. Won't be doing again.
ReplyDelete:o( it sounds like it had massive potential, but just wasn't run well. disappointing
ReplyDelete