The Murphy's Law Half Marathon Race Report

"Everything that can go wrong, will"

The Denver Marathon and Half Marathon started this morning at 7 am. I awoke at 7:38. FRAK!

So, what were my options? I wasn't going to make it to the race, it had started and they would have closed the course before I finished. not doing the race at all was an option, but not one I liked too much. While I hadn't been too enthused about this race, I had started my season with a half and finishing it with one made sense. My final option was to do my own Half and that was what I decided to go with.

I grabbed a quick breakfast, as I normally would on race day, prepped a pair of bottles of sports drink and sat down to figure out my route (and let my breakfast settle and digest a bit). About an hour later I headed out with some sport beans in my jersey pocket and a pair of drink bottles. I decided to run along the creek since it provided consistent access to water. I had the bottles of gatorade, but I didn't want to rely totally on them.

I tucked one of the bottles away, warmed up a bit then headed up the creek with one of the bottles. After a mile, I took a swig, hid it away and headed on my way. At the two mile mark, I turned around and headed down the creek. When I got close to my bottle, I did a gut check to see if I needed anything, I didn't, so i kept going. When I got back to my starting point, I picked up the other bottle and dropped it off a mile later, so I wouldn't have to go more than 2 miles without access to a drink (plus having access to the water fountains).

Going into the 'race' my plan had been to start off running by effort, see how I felt and if I felt good enough, shoot for my PR from the Flying Pig. I decided to to stick to this strategy and I felt really good starting out.

Murphy's Law struck around Mile 5 though with a case of "I need to make a pitstop... NOW" unfortunately, I had to wait another two miles and the discomfort certainly slowed me down. Then the pitstop itself slowed me down even further. I got back on the road but two miles later... Take Two! Fortunately I was back in the neighborhood of the public toilets.

I'd had a lot of wind knocked out of my sails but powered on and felt pretty good up until mile 11. I started to feel a loss of intensity and enthusiasm that I partly attributed to fatigue but more to the absence of other racers and any kind of crowd, that energy and competitiveness can do a lot to keep spirits up and relieve the boredom, I definitely missed it today.

I managed to finish my Half in 1:59:56, a disappointing time in some respects, although I wouldn't normally expect to make two long pitstops so it's not too bad in that espect.

Once I had finished, I took a few minutes to sit in Boulder Creek (not next to... IN) for my 'ice bath' then walked a block home. There was no medal, no festivities and my postrace food was some chocolate milk and a trip to Chipotle. I think I made the best of the situation, but I still wish I had made it to the race on time.