Merry Christmas

Chewie and I are enjoying a Christmas walk at the park. Hope everyone is having a happy and safe holiday.

Kevin
Half TRIing

Santa Hustle 13.1 Daytona Beach, FL

Santa Hustle 13.1 Daytona Beach, FL

!!SANTA!!

 

 

It’s been a long time since I have had to do a negative race review so I may be a little rusty.

 

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.

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”



!!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.

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.



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.

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.

X-mas Florida Style

 

More Half Fanatics

 

Santa says hi

 

Age Group Awards.
I got 2:25:09 and still got 3rd place!!

 

The Race Bling

Don't be fooled



When deers attack

Martha saved Bonnie!!

Thank you Martha

Victory over the deer!!

 

I think "Marty the Moose is smiling.

OUC Half Marathon Orlando

OUC Half Marathon Orlando

2010 OUC Half Marathon Race review is located here.

Yesterday was the OUC Half Marathon in Orlando.  This is always a great race and it's pretty much in my back yard.  The race passes within on block of my house.  The course is also about 70% of the course I run every weekend for my 70.3 training (which makes it a little boring for me). Unfortunately, the race is also held on about 2 miles of old brick which loves to mess with my knees.

The race went really well for me considering how many races I have completed in the past month.  I had Rev3 70.3, and then two weeks later I had Miami Man 70.3.  The week after that was Space Coast 13.1 and this race followed seven days later.  Next week I have the Santa Run 13.1.  Needless to say I am investing in Advil lately.

I completed the race in 1:55:03 with a 8:46 pace.  Which is two minutes faster then my 2010 result.



Beautiful Downtown Orlando



Swans in Lake Eola



Orlando's sister city is Urayasu, Japan



Lake Eola' Japanese pagoda in honor of our sister city

Several drummers came from Japan to play for us at the race.
This was REALLY cool!! (see a video of them below).

Video of the Japanese drummers (really cool).



Bonnie flying past the drummers

Stupid me

Mentos, the fresh maker!

Age grouper awards

The Bling