The Half Marathon and PR that weren't

Yesterday was supposed to be my half marathon "A" race, but mother nature had other plans for me. I had trained for months and was prepared to crush my PR and had lofty goals. Saturday night it rained like crazy. As a result, a river flooded out part of the race course. When we arrived Sunday morning, we heard the race director announce that the course was shortened to a 10 miler. At first I was disappointed, but after a few minutes I changed my focus and prepared for a 10 mile ass kicking. I knew my pace would change and I quickly set a new time goal for the day.

When the gun went off I ran like a fiend. I knew I had to go out hard because the winds would kill me later. I was feeling great until ~mile 6. The winds were really taking a toll on me. I was battling to hold on to my pace while fighting the winds. I tried to hide around people, but it was too wide open.

Long story short, I made it to mile 9 and was fighting to hang on. This was the only uphill on the course. I struggled up and could see up the road was the final turn. I looked at my Garmin and got a feeling that this was not going to be 10 miles. I kept pushing down the road and was passed by a few people in the shoot. When I crossed the line I saw that I killed my 10 mile PR. Problem was, my Garmin said it was 4/10 of a mile short. I waited for the Wingman to finish and saw what his Garmin said. He came in short as well.

Overall I was happy with the pace I ran. I really killed it out there. The pace I held over the distance I ran was the fastest I've done. Well, I was happy until I looked over the race results today. They listed the race as a shortened 9.55 miler. What?!?! Why did they say it was a 10 miler knowing it was not the distance? The race organizers should be ashamed of themselves for not admitting Sunday morning what the true distance was. I know the Garmin came in short and that the course had to be short, but to tell us otherwise is stupid. And to add insult to injury, the pace they avg is based on the gun time, not my chip time. They did wave starts so I had ~2 minutes added to my time. The avg time for my chip time is was actually counts. I've never seen a race calculate the time this way when there is a starting mat. It's so frustrating. Needless to say I will not be doing another race organized by this particular company.

So now I don't have a PR to show for my efforts, but I have an ass kicking pace for a long distance under my belt. When the next 10 miler comes up next month, I will be ready to kick some serious butt........unless it's super hot out, then all bets are off. But for now, the runner is leaving and the multisport athlete is entering. It's time for a change.