Race Report

The weekend went great. Started off Friday afternoon with departure time of 4PM. Of course I was riding with 2 women, my wife and one of my training partners, The Hornet. Always going to be late when ladies getting dressed for the town is involved. So we left around 4:15, not too bad. Traffic was light since it was Good Friday, so we made good time. Got to the race expo in downtown N.O. around 5:30ish and met Big Poppa, Reba and Word. Parked and went up to pick up our packet.

Picked up our packet and found out that we were not getting a free timing chip. Ticked me off. We had run the Crescent City qualifier in November in order to get a runners spot and a chip. They failed to mention in the race description that only classes A to C get a free chip and a seeded runner's position. Class D gets jack squat. We had the same color bib as the people who did nothing but register and put in a time of less than 1 hour whether or not they could actually run that fast. Needless to say, Iwas not happy. Had to pay $5 for a chip and hope and pray that we could sneak to the front of the race so we would not be behind all the walkers who come up to the middle of the pack pre-race. Dangerous trying to run through a wall of walkers 4 and 5 abreast in the street. We left the expo and went to eat at Adolfo's. Great pre-race meal, the food is always excellent and very reasonably priced. No matter what the reviews say, the service is never any worse than at any other New Orleans restaurant. Stopped by Cafe Du Monde after dinner and picked up Bengiets to go. The wife had to pick up her brother from a friend's place and head back to BR since she had to work. Got to sleep about 11ish after some laughing. No matter how old you are, when someone cuts a juicy fart in bed, it is funny, regardless of whether they made the sound with their mouth or not.

For some ungodly reason, Big Poppa had set the alarm for 6:00 am and the race was at 8:30. We were within 0.5 mile from the race start. Got up and cleared the stomach issues. Laid around until about 7:30, got up and got dressed. We jogged over to the starting area and tried to get at the front with our buddy Word who had a seeded position. Marine guys were having none of it, so we got in line where we were supposed to and then snuck up to the front. Ended up about 75-100' behind the start line. The gun went off and we ended up getting to the start line around 20 seconds behind the gun. Turned out to be right were we needed to be.

The Hornet and I got caught up in the initial wave and ran a 7:25 first mile. A little quick, but it didn't feel that quick. In such tight quarters for the first mile, it feels like you are going slower than you are. Slowed the pace a little during mile 2. The Hornet told me to go on around mile 2 since she wasn't feeling the pace during the race. I slowly pulled away and stayed around a minute under my goal of 50 minutes up to mile 5. Passed 2 bands, the beer handouts, donut handouts and the hot dog handouts. Tried to get the lady with the hose to spray me about mile 3.5, but she missed me. Had a near collision at mile 4 when a guy decided to come to a dead stop in front of me at the water station. Not cool, dodged him and came out unscathed.

At mile 5, I was about a minute below the goal, so I pushed it on mile 6 to see if I could make up enough time to hit the 48 minute goal. Wasn't feeling it until another runner from Baton Rouge, who rane a 47 minute, came past me. I knew she was faster than me, so I stayed with her for the last kick. She ended up slowing for the last 0.2, as did I. Ended up at 48:45, which was great. Didn't meet the fast goal, but I'll take the 13 minute improvement from last year. Post race party was fun. Got back to BR around 4ish.

Biked 25 miles at 19.2 mph on Sunday. Swam 1800 yds on Monday. Ran 2 miles, did spin class and then ran 1.5 miles at 8:00 pace this morning. Tomorrow is a rest day, speedwork on Thursday and leaving for Galveston Thursday night for the Lonestar Quarter.