Half from Hell

Today, Christine and I did the San Dieguito Half-Marathon. I initially thought I wasn't going to do this one as I might be tired after all the recent biking but I actually felt pretty good and it was looking like it was going to be a good day so what the hey.

We show up early and still had to park nearly a mile away from the start. We gear up and head over. The race started promptly at 8am and we hit the road. The field is 95% runners, including a lot of 5K and 10K people. There weren't that many walkers but since the course time limit was 4 hours I wasn't worried. My last few halfs were just a few minutes over 3 hours.

It was a pretty tough course. I don't know how it is possible but about 8-9 miles of the course was uphill. Nothing too steep but just a constant grind. Tough workout but within my abilities. I love a good hill.

Everything was going pretty well until Mile 7. The race marshal drives by in a van and asks if everyone was alright. Yup, doing fine. Mile 9 is the turnaround. The support people who hand out water seem to be packing up, with tables folded and dixie cups of water sitting on the ground. Weird but whatever. Those were the last event staff I saw on the course. Apparently, since the majority of the field was runners, they didn't feel that they had to stay on the course to support the rest of us. The last 4 miles of the course were unmanned by the support staff, including no water. Around mile 11, Christine and I get to a road intersection and there is no indication of which is the correct way to go. There is no one else in sight. We flag down a car passing by and ask if they know which way the course goes and they pointed to the road ahead. Guess what? They were wrong. Long story short, Christine and I got lost, and did an extra 3 miles before we got on course. We had to ask for directions 3 times before we made it back. I estimate that there were 20-25 people behind us including other walkers, and slower runners. One of the people behind us was an elderly man in his 70's, two teen-age girls and a young man who was really struggling. I hope they made it ok.

I was pretty mad when we crossed the finish line and there was basically no one there. We hike up the hill from the finish line to the park area and find the event coordinator and give her a piece of our mind. We let her know that the course is unmarked, we got lost and that there are other people on the course without any support. She apologizes and says that she will get someone out there. I ask and we at least get a medal.

Up the beer garden. We catch the last 5 minutes and who should we see but the race marshal who has been enjoying himself swilling beer for the last 90 minute while there were still people on the course. By this time, he's heard what has happened and I overhear him talking to another of the event staff basically not believing what we were saying and making it sound like we had to be a bunch of dummies to get lost. I speak up and tell him that the course wasn't marked. He swears up and down that he marked every intersection with a "half pound of flour". Christine steps in and continues talking to him about it. His story is that he did his "sweep" and everyone was alright and that he had a police car follow the last walker in to make sure they finish. He is responsible for the safety of the individuals but was content to make his final sweep 2 hours before the completion of the course time and then retire to drink beer. He refused to go back out and look for any other people on the course because he had been drinking. Whatever. Send someone, dude. As near as I can tell, what had happened is that

1) he was too lazy to see his job though. He should have had support staff available for the entire course time.

2) marking the course intersections in flour is a bad idea when hundreds of runners and cars are trampling by. I think that by the time we got to the intersection, the flour had blown away.

3) He wouldn't acknowledge that he had done anything wrong or that anything was even wrong. Boo for him.

Anyway, we called it a day and went out for pancakes. After it was all said and done, we walked over 17-miles when it should have been 13.1.