In October 2011, at the Detroit Free Press expo, George & I had registered for a drawing for the Capital City Half in Columbus, Ohio. We ended up both winning a free entry, so though it wasn't my choice of race for Ohio I figured why not. I followed the race on Facebook for months and they definitely hyped it quite a bit, so I thought it'd be a decent experience. Given that the race was the day before The Great Train Race (one Garret does annually in Fredericksburg) it was definitely just a quick/squeezed in race. I headed up Friday to hit the expo...expo didn't show me much. To begin with it was very small, additionally directly across the hall was the Hell City Tatoo convention...we had to walk through it to enter the expo. It's not that I have anything against tatoos...I actually have a few I plan to get when I have enough of a break from races...but the attendees personified the title "Hell City"...and Garret was rather wide eyed as we made our way through the colorful folks. After picking up my bib and shirt and Garret's tee for the kids' race we headed out to find dinner, then back to the hotel to crash.
Race morning I headed down to the start line and started checking things out. The first thing that struck me was how many portapotties there were. It was serious overkill, but kinda funny at the same time.
I headed over to the corrals and jumped in my spot but the music was insanely loud and making things miserable. I couldn't wait for the race to start just to get away from it. As we waited they had a "special guest" speak...a guy who had dropped of a heart attack just before last year's finish line. He was ready to run, dedicating his race to the EMS personnel who saved him the previous year. I thought it was rather dangerous as it could encourage others who were not prepared to run the race to push too hard for the 'celebrity' status. Shortly after we were off...I was in the first corral and cranked it out to find an opening.
Overall the race conditions were really good..it was overcast and in the low 60s. The race course was rather boring. We wound through a bunch of streets with nothing in particular to look at. There was some course support but not much (in the way of spectators). Eventually we ended up around Ohio State and there were quite a bit of people cheering us on, but overall I was not impressed with the course what-so-ever. It was nothing bad but nothing great. There was plenty of water stops though.
Just around mile 8 I began noticing people falling out and ambulances. From mile 9 to 12 I noticed more people being loaded into ambulances than I have ever seen in any race and I started paying attention to their condition. It was just ridiculous. At one point I passed two girls that were obviously running together (matching cutesy outfits), both laid out on the ground, each with their own ambulance and crew attending, and both covered in vomit and lying in puddles of vomit. Shortly thereafter I witnessed a woman being loaded into an ambulance that was COMPLETELY out of it...her head just flopped to the side and her eyes rolled back. I literally lost count of ambulances speeding from the race course. My take away from this race was nothing more than amazement that people would push themselves so hard. You don't just hit that point immediately with no warning...if you are in that rough of shape you feel it coming on and need to back off. I finished the race in a respectable 2:16:07 and then lined up at the start line for the kids' race with Garret.
The starting line and time for the kids' race was well defined, but we had NO idea of the course or the distance. As we stood at the line there was chatter amongst the parents wondering about the same things. We mostly thought it was a one mile course, but we couldn't determine how that could be the face that just a few yards in front of the start line was the main course for the half and there were still plenty of racers coming through. The race started with no warning and everyone was off. I lost Garret quickly trying to avoid trampling little ones...
Oddly enough we ran the few yards to the main course, merged with the course, and crossed the finish line. It was chaos. Had I been amongst the racers just finishing up I'd have been VERY irrate. I'm all for kids' races and getting them involved in running, but throwing them in the final .1 miles of a half as these folks finish up 13 miles didn't seem to be well thought through. The finish line support staff was equally confused, some handing the kids 1/2 marathon finishers medals and other handing them the kids' finishers medal and all of them giving all of the adults that ran with kids a 1/2 marathon finishers medal. I grabbed Garret, got a picture, and bailed.
The medals were nice, but other than that...this half marathon...well, I checked off another state...my 25th to be exact...halfway done with my challenge.
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