run #78 - Platte River half

Kinda a wasted effort today, due to a raging hangover I never really had my head in this race. Was able to hold a seven minute mile until about halfway, when I fell apart. I just had nothing in the tank to respond when the race started getting hard. Not a horrible run though, I woulda been under the 100 minute barrier had I not wasted so much time at the hash beer check. Ended up 157th place out of 822 finishers.

Start time: 9AM
Distance: 13.1 miles
Time: 1:42:06 minutes
Pace: 7:48 per mile
Weather: 50F

Not an inch of dirt along the course, it was basically just a paved bike path along the Platte River until the last mile or so, where we cut through Denver and ended up at the Buckhorn Exchange.

My thoughts on the race:

-Road runners can be such dorks. Can't believe how much gear some of these people used. For a race lasting less than three hours, significantly less for most people, and aid stations every two miles, I saw tons of runners carrying along more crap than I'd take for a ten hour trip into the wilderness. I saw one guy with a 100 oz camelbak and at least ten packs of gu. It's 13 miles for chrissakes!

-I would like to meet the lady who came up with the idea for that new running skirt and lick her feet clean after she did the muddy buddy. That is one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world.

-I'm very much against the excessive cost of road races nowadays. But I actually got my money's worth here. For $35 I got a cool shirt (an actual race shirt too, not the cotton billboard full of ads that you get at most road races nowadays), good support on the course, all-you-can-eat burgers and brauts at the finish, all-you-can-drink beer at the end, and a ticket to ride the train back to the start.

-Seriously, team in training people need to calm it down a notch. They're fast approaching the level of the super religious freaks. I used to put up with them because the Austin group had a bunch of chicks in it who I wanted to nail. But it's just retarded how giddy they get. They were out in force on Sunday, and it was super annoying. I was sitting along the course after I had finished, about the 13.05 mile mark, watching runners come in. One guy, finishing well over the 4:30 mark, decked out in TIT shorts, a TIT shirt, and a TIT hat, started yelling and screaming, seemed like he was about to cream all over his fancy uniform. It's really great that they believe that traveling around the world to do a marathon or triathlon will somehow help cure cancer, but can you please quit bugging the hell out of everyone else?

-Though there were long sections of this course that seemed to go on forever, one spot really stood out. I was on the path, had a scenic Platte River on my immediate right. To the left I could see the snow capped mountains of the Front Range. And straight ahead I had a great view of the Denver skyline. I love Colorado!

-Was hurting so bad around the nine mile mark that I actually resorted to trying a packet of Gu. Used to eat these all the time, but one time Social Retard and I were out in Bastrop and I took one. She then started making some obscene noises, and just as I swallowed the last of the Gu she said, "now you know how it feels." I haven't had any since, and when I took one yesterday I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I think I'll continue my boycott. Friggin' gross, don't know how you chicks do that. The Gu didn't help anyways, the last few miles were painful.