Well I figure I couldn't avoid this race report forever. Needless to say, this was not one of my best days. Rebecca and I had been looking forward to this race after much hard training. Unfortunately the conditions were not great. When we left the house that morning, the weather felt slightly warm and humid. Not a good sign if you are feeling comfortable in your race clothes prior to the start.
Upon getting there we went and checked out the MAJCOM challenge tent and then went to the bathroom a couple of times. The starting corral was massive which made it nice. We were able to move right toward the front of the line. It was awesome to watch the national anthem was played and everyone there was completely silent. Definitely different from what you see at any other race. Following that we saw an awesome flyover from a U-2. After it passed over, it punched it a climbed straight up. Definitely a good start.
I went out feeling pretty good and was on a 640 pace for the first 14 or so miles. After I hit the half, I started to feel fatigued and got a bit worried. I also began to feel a cramp in my side which remained for a couple of miles. I began to fall off pace and completely hit the wall around 16-18. At this point I just didn't care anymore about my time and only wanted to finish. The headwind we hit around the outside of the airfield did not help matters. I did my best to keep running in between aid stations but I wasn't able to make it a couple of times. During the last 5 miles there were some hills that seemed massive. I hit a 9:30 pace on those unfortunately. The finish consisted of a long lap around a field where you could see the finish stretch the whole time. It was prety horrible. I saw my wife being escorted to the med tent so that concerned me. I found that she had basically fainted as she crossed the finish line. She did good work considering the conditions. I was proud of her.
I crossed the finish line and my legs were destroyed. I was unhappy with my time but relieved that it was over. It seemed that everyone struggled with the conditions as the winner ran a 2:47. I think my issues were a combinations of humidity, headwind, dehydration and going out to fast.
We did have a great experience as we stayed with some friends from my work who were doing the half marathon. It was fun to share the experience with all of them.
My watch decided to malfunction so I lost my splits. These are from the results:
10K - 41:34
Half - 1:27:51
35K - 2:31:35
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