Now this is a refreshing change – how about a post about an event on THE Day the event took place! I know, I know, crazy talk (or maybe that should be ‘type’). To be honest, it is more out of convenience than a break with tradition. Like last month, September is one big pile of to-dos as we get ready for our annual Halloween party. Each morning I get up and look at my list and get depressed, but each evening I try to get a few more items scratched off the list. My brother is also providing a huge amount of help as he has been working on some prop mechanics for me (that would be foreshadowing for the post part posts).
So today was the annual running of the IVS Half Marathon or as I like to refer to it as – my home course event.
This race is held in the hills of Springdale Cemetery. If you recall, that is my weekend training ground. My friends (Sung and Ryan) and I climb those hills about every Sunday morning rain, sleet, snow or shine. We probably know every pebble on that course by now. Unfortunately, Ryan and Sung were not able to run with me today so it was a pretty lonely run. This year it seemed like my lucky rabbit’s foot (symbolism only, I’d hate to think whacking off a cute and cuddly rabbit’s foot would produce anything good karma wise.) was replaced by black cats and ladders. Normally I take it a little easy before a big race, but this year I had to clear trails, mow, weed, chainsaw and yesterday stain and varnish all the basement window trim. Somehow during all of this I managed to tweak my back and for some strange reason I bruised the ball of my big toe yesterday afternoon – SUCKAGE. I should have known something would go wrong when my race bib ended up being 13.
Speaking of the race bib, this year’s was absolutely ridiculous. They finally got rid of the foot chip – FINALLY, having to stand while someone tries to take those off your shoe after a tiring race is torture. Unfortunately, rather than replace it with the more common single strip sensors on the back of the bib, they chose to use this god-awful Active-IPCO chip. Not only is that thing huge, but it is stiff and heavy. I can’t tell if it was to accommodate the larger sensor or they just decided to go with an obnoxious sized bib but that didn’t help things. Look at the picture above and imagine that thing hanging across your stomach. I heard other people complaining about it as well. I also signed up late which means the cost of this race was out of alignment with the race amenities – which are really weak. They have a pot luck which is okay, but this year, no door prizes, only gave out trophies to the first two in each age group (more on that later), your packet consists of a bib, a page with the course map on it and a hoodie (note, the hoodie is the best part of the race). This year, the timers showed up just before the race and I am still baffled on how they got the start time – pretty sure they used race gun for it and assumed we all crossed the line at that point which is incorrect because I always start in the back of this race so I can entertain myself by picking people off.
Hit the jump to see how the race turned out
