Sigh. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
The race directors were good enough to send me a discount code as a 50 State Marathon Club Member… but sadly after countless minutes pondering what best to hav eon my bib (I settled on 2 Kevin 2 Run), I apparently had missed the cut-off for printing. So that proffered option was… meaningless.
That seemed to be the nature of the race — one thing in print, one then in reality.
From the start, I was at the finish… which made for a confused disconnect in my brain. If I’m already at the finish, why even bother starting? Because it’s an out and back course… actually it was A LOT of out and backs and loop de loops.
So it was that repeatedly you’d pass a marker on the way out that was for on the way back… like this moment at mile one saying we were at “The Last Mile.” I audibly uttered a Charlie Cale “Bullshit.”
And whenever there was a fork in the road, well, we Yogi Berra’d it and took it…
I’m being too harsh on the event — it’s because of how it ended. But it was nice and pleasant to be out and about on a mostly flat course for a change…
Here’s the Last Mile once again… I had already been passed by a number of pacers/runners and was struggling… a far cry from the way out… and as you can see, it’s a lot more desolate.
The actual finish even had a charming bonus — an ice cream sundae bar… too bad the guy in front of me was a bit of a jerk and took so long that I just grabbed any ice cream and hoofed it. Not a bad hot fudge but gosh there were nuts to be had. Aw, nuts…
But the real kicker was getting out of Fresno. As I pulled out of the parking lot, every street I tried would be closed… but not right away. Oh, no… they’d have us go 5-6 blocks, through multiple lights, before a “road closed due to marathon event” blockade was thrown up. I ran the course… these roads were not roads we ran on. I don’t know why they had blocked them off. It took me 45 minutes to Pac-Man my way around this maze of pelting infuriations before I found a road that did get us around the course… except it was literally adjacent to the runners so why was this road open? Maddening!
It soured my mood… which is a bit of a bummer because again I did better than Tahoe by a country mile or three. I’m sure I’ll be happier about it later but for now I’m in road rage harumphing mode.
Harumph. Harumph-harumph.
Plus it’s daylight savings and I’m all screwed up on times. You’d think an extra hour this morning would have helped. But an extra hour of sleep requires you to be, ya know, sleeping when I found myself tossing and turning. And the extra hours in the AM means it’s already getting dark outside.
Aw, phooey.