Ritchie, even tho he said "BUS is no more", decided to still put on the PJ Romp but I had enough of it. Not a fan of Crotchern Park and I hate multiple loops and getting sick of the 6 hour race thing. And then I found this little gem. A lowkey, early start, nothing race. Hm... And airfare is reasonable!
I signed up. Jamey signed up last minute. Same flight. Same hotel. Cool. On the plane now.
Race is low key. All the proceeds are going to the high school sports team. The RD apologized that he couldn't start the race earlier because his people are all volunteer based and he just couldn't ask them to be there even earlier. I get it...
Perhaps I'll put the course description here later but for now, we start with a small baby loop (2.3 mile) through a housing developement and then 5 loops of 4.++ miles. Ok - been there and done that.
Expected temperatures are 60 at 6am and going into the 70s. Perhaps later thunderstorms.
Best thing? Jamey got us complementary tickets to a local JCC which means at the very least, indoor plumbing and showers. I can even jump into a pool if I really want... Only bad thing is, is that we land 11:44pm Saturday. Oh well. Can't have it all.
Got to the airport without an issue. Cool. Got better seats for Jamey and me. Boarded. And then the forecasted thunderstorms came.
Pilot announced that they might shut down the ramp but it will only last for 15 minutes. I don't know. I fell asleep and we were in the air. Jamey told me that we did wait about 15 minutes but that was it. The pilot made up time and all was good. Got the car and called the hotel. Check in was 3pm but they agreed to let us check in at 10am. Got there at 9:45 and they let us have some of that complementary breakfast. Awesome.
Went out for lunch and some recon and back to room. Jamey later went to the Mall of America. I stayed behind.
I went to sleep early and slept well. Got up at 2am and got my thing on.
TMI alert: I usually wake up early and go to the bathroom at least 3 times getting everything out. Then once more at race site and then the little blue pill to shut the gates of hell. That being said, this morning, it did NOT come all out at once. I made multiple multiple trips and each time a contribution was made but not a complete one. Very worried...
Race starts at 6:30am and we left at 5:30am since we were so damn close. Parked and then realized they only had 3 port-a-potties!!! WTH?!? Really my only complaint about the race. Got in a small line which later became huge and did my thing.
The RD at 6:20 went and told everyone that we will in fact start on time at 6:30 and people should prepare toilet paper ahead of time. That was a little ridiculous I thought. He arranged for 2 port-a-potties while the park provided 1. I get that he only had approx 150 people or so but seriously dude!!!
Race started. Jamey and I kept joking about the housing development. We, in NYer fashion, assumed he meant "projects". No - not quite. It was a really nice houseing development.
The RD, in his email, went big time about cheating. "If you have plans on cheating and cutting the course, DO NOT COME!". Wow... To that end, there were multiple areas where your bib number was noted. Good!
By the way, apparently the reason for this race was because the race director wanted to spell the Alpha-Bet with his marathons and he just could not find a marathon that started with the letter X (except in China) and then realized that he lives on Xenia Avenue and so the race was created.
The race had 3 cyclists. Overall Marathon bike, overall Half-Marathon bike and the sweeper, a kid named Blake. Still, he said, if you're lost and you see Blake, ask him where to go. Of course, if you're lost and you see Blake, that would mean that Blake is lost too... Still, everytime we would see Blake, we made sure to ask him if we were lost... Blake was cool.
We spoke to Liam, who was in the Ireland 100 Marathon club. This was 107 for him. Nice.
We met 2 young girls (NAMES?) who were 17 and 15 and ran with them for a little while too, joking around with them. We thought the big loop was the same for the fulls and halfs but it wasn't. We had an earlier turn around then they did so we got seperated.
The big loop had an indoor plumbing option and I decided to exercise that option. Way too much methane was coming up and there is that saying, "Never trust a fart in an Ultra...". This wasn't an ultra but I couldn't trust it. Lots of methane but a little biologic contribution too.
There was an awesome 3 way intersection as we referred to it and they played great music.
We met Sydney along the way. An awesome 21 year old doing the half as well. I referred to her as "Sydney with the 2 "Y"s and 2 eyes. She liked it. As we talked to her, her expression was constantly "Holy Buckets!". Her mom was a teacher. We liked it...
Before the race, we spoke to Keegan who was doing his first marathon and his supporters, wife and dog named Carl. Carl was awesome and got some lovies from us. We on/off saw Keegan. He wanted 4:30. Who knows.
At one point, we did see the lead marathoner being led by a cyclist. It was a "young kid" and he was running hard. He was also being chased by a 37 year old. We only saw them for 1 loop. The second loop and onwards, the 37 year old was being escorted by the lead bike. He won the race. In fact, there were only 2 sub 3 hours. More about the kid in a few minutes.
A little more TMI alert here... Out of the 5 big loops, I decided to exercise my indoor plumbing a total of 3 times which means that since I woke up, I recycled 12 times... Brand new PR for me. Yay ;(. In fact, it was a Freaky Friday situation. Usually, about 13 miles in, Jamey goes to the bathroom and comes out all elated screaming that he just lost 2 pounds. In this case, he didn't need to go at all. It was only me. Sad...
I did meet up with Keegan once in the indoor plumbing department and realized that he was only less than a mile ahead of us. Interesting.
We did see a very consistent Heather Ziegler out there. Nice...
Anyway, after my 3rd and thankfully last stop, I ran to Jamey. As I got to him, he was helping the original lead marathoner (young kid) out of a chair and the timer dude who was there also helped get him into a car. He DNFed there. Apparently he just collapsed into the chair or something like that. Good place too because they were able to mark him as a DNF as opposed to having to look for him later. Sucks to be him.
We left that area, when a second "young kid", comes flying through us. OK... We continuued on and got through the tunnel area and what do we see? He's laying on the ground. Thankfully, some cyclists who are NOT affiliated with the race happened to be there and perhaps saw the whole thing. We asked the kid if he was ok, and he said that he was dizzy. His legs were all covered in dirt so my guess is that he either fell or just collapsed. Either way that sucks. Anyway, the cyclists told us that they have him and we should continue. We left. We thought that we might have heard sirens but couldn't really believe that. Almost 5 miles later (an hour), we were almost there when a police vehicle came on the course which was weird and not good. Couldn't be right? And yet, it was. They stopped on the scene and got info. EMS was already there anyway... FD was a little off but parked. The AED was near the kid along with the crash bag and stuff but I don't think it was used. We left but when we got back, the PD and FD were gone but EMS was still there and the kid was being walked into his parents car. Wow...
On and on we went. One loop at a time. One shady area into a sunny area and repeat. The 3 way intersection kid, who I called a Master DJ, played great music. I thought I started seeing Keegan. We were making up the distance. Jamey initially was doing great but the 60 degrees turned into 80s with a real feel of 90s and he started feeling it. My stomach was finally fine.
Last loop. Getting it done. Happy to think about the end.
Jamey made friends with Charity(66F) and Ann(59F) and kept joking with them. At almost the finish line, there was a group cheering people on and we interacted with them...
Less than a mile away. I see Keegan. Jamey doesn't believe me. We start bridgeing to him. He doesn't believe me. I run ahead to check. Jamey is coming in slow. He's suffering. I finish with Keegan and Jamey is just a little back.
The race was very lowkey. It was fun. No getting lost. Lots of volunteers. Some shade and some sun. Otherwise ok. Would have been nice for some ice for Jamey. Liked the indoor plumbing but hated 3 port-a-potties at the start. I did see a hawk or 2 at the start. After we finished, we spoke to the RD and others. Walking to the car, we spoke to the coach of the HS team. I pointed a hawk and his nest and she said that he's a known thief and also a protected type of bird so no one is allowed to climb to his nest and to collect their stuff from him.
Shower at the JCC and food and then as we heard the severe thunderstorms with large size hail warning, we opted to go to the airport.