DC RnR racers

[gt7301b]

Post your recaps here!!

It looks like the weather wasn't as bad as expected.

[Wines Not Whines]

The weather was great! I'm battling a cold and an injured knee, but I still managed to get a pretty big PR. My Garmin said exactly 1:56:00 as I crossed the finish line. My official time will probably be a couple of seconds over/under. I'm stoked.

Gear check post-race was a mess. I ended up jumping on the bus and started calling out bag numbers to help out. It was surprisingly effective.

I hope everyone had a great race!

[MrsE]

Congrats! I hope all you you did well!

[mrshandy]

The weather was much better than expected! Water stations were pretty bad, gear check was a fucking cluster of crappiness.

I finished in 2:11:08, 10:01 pace. Not my best by far, but I'm pretty happy since that was my goal.

I want to know whose bright idea it was to have locked porty potties on the first mile. WTF. I know it was pretty pathetic to have to pee the first mile considering I had just finished going to the bathroom in the corral. When I had my u/s a few weeks ago, the technician was amazed at my bladder's ability to refill itself. I had to stop at a Starbucks next to where I went to grad school, which actually worked great!

[ebeth]

Mar 16, 2013 9:59:57 GMT -5 Wines Not Whines said:

The weather was great! I'm battling a cold and an injured knee, but I still managed to get a pretty big PR. My Garmin said exactly 1:56:00 as I crossed the finish line. My official time will probably be a couple of seconds over/under. I'm stoked.

Gear check post-race was a mess. I ended up jumping on the bus and started calling out bag numbers to help out. It was surprisingly effective.

I hope everyone had a great race!

lol. I also got onto the gear check bus and was calling out numbers. A couple other ppl jumped on to help the volunteers get the bags into some kind of order. What a mess!

Weather was pretty perfect but otherwise 'twas not my day. Tummy troubles slowed me down but I made my 'c' goal. Now I'm being all emo like 'I suck at life! I'm never running again!'. My disposition will improve post nap.

[JayTea]

I had a really good time at the race!  Wasn't impressed with the get your own water stops or the tuba at one of the early miles.. but it was a great time.  Pre-race gear check for me was worse - but after the race, there was no one at my bus, so I got my stuff, but one of my running partners had to wait awhile.

Only bad part for me was that one of my running partners was just getting over pneumonia and developed a heel spur a few weeks ago.. but she trudged on and we walked with her when needed... so no PR.  Was hoping to hit 2:30, but the walking put us back.  Ah well.  The hill at mile 6 was a killer, though.  I think from right after that hill to mile 11 I really hit my groove.. but then I started really feeling the inflamed muscle in my foot.

I enjoyed the band Cowboy Mouth at the end - they are from where I grew up and we used to see them at least once a month when I was in college... Michelob Ultra Light and Cowboy Mouth.. brought me back 20 years!!

Cherry Blossom in three weeks.. totally psyched for it and REALLY hoping my friend's pneumonia is gone!!

[gt7301b]

Great job ladies! My gear check solution is to have a speedy husband who can pick up our bags before the lines start. I've yet to find a gear check pickup at a large race that moves fast enough for my tastes.

[wanderlustmom]

Great job everyone.

[katinthehat]

JayTea Cowboy Mouth is AWESOME!

[ebeth]

Mar 17, 2013 11:32:01 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Great job ladies! My gear check solution is to have a speedy husband who can pick up our bags before the lines start. I've yet to find a gear check pickup at a large race that moves fast enough for my tastes.

this was far outside normal post-race waits for gear checks. 

[JayTea]

Mar 17, 2013 15:21:14 GMT -5 ebeth said:

Mar 17, 2013 11:32:01 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Great job ladies! My gear check solution is to have a speedy husband who can pick up our bags before the lines start. I've yet to find a gear check pickup at a large race that moves fast enough for my tastes.

this was far outside normal post-race waits for gear checks. 

Yeah.  They should have farmed it out to the marines.  They had my bag waiting before I even got up to the truck.

[shorty20]

Did any of you guys run it last year? They must have changed the gear check. It was in the Armory last year and was really well run, I thought anyway. Did they even let you in the Armory at all? That was one of the best parts of the race, being able to stay warm in there beforehand and using the bathrooms. That's a shame if they changed it.

Anyway, congrats to everyone!

[mrshandy]

Mar 18, 2013 11:28:41 GMT -5 shorty20 said:

Did any of you guys run it last year? They must have changed the gear check. It was in the Armory last year and was really well run, I thought anyway. Did they even let you in the Armory at all? That was one of the best parts of the race, being able to stay warm in there beforehand and using the bathrooms. That's a shame if they changed it.

Anyway, congrats to everyone!

I ran it last year and it was much better run.

Nope, the Armory wasn't accesible at all.

The gear check was crazy, At my bus they were taking random bags out of bus and putting them on the ground. I don't know how that was supposed to help things move faster, but it sure as hell didn't.

The water stations were poorly manned and god forbid they have a sign telling you when water is coming.

Honestly I'm not sure I'll run it again. I wouldn't do it for the marathon, now that I've seen what an awesome race the MCM is.

[shorty20]

Well that sucks!

[flamingemu]

Mar 18, 2013 11:28:41 GMT -5 shorty20 said:

Did any of you guys run it last year? They must have changed the gear check. It was in the Armory last year and was really well run, I thought anyway. Did they even let you in the Armory at all? That was one of the best parts of the race, being able to stay warm in there beforehand and using the bathrooms. That's a shame if they changed it.

Anyway, congrats to everyone!

I ran it last year. They changes the route to start at 14th and Con and end at the armory. It was much smoother last year. 

I was undertrained, pissed that I had to get my own water, and hating life up the Rock Creek Park hill, but I had fun and finished better than I expected.

[ebeth]

can someone explain this 'get your own water thing' thing? what happened? I didn't see any of that?

I did get the general impression that there were simply not enough volunteers. all the volunteers I came across seemed crazy overwhelmed. too many people handing out medals, not nearly enough at gear check (@ either end).

[JayTea]

At the first water stop there were cups and a water dispenser and then further on there were people handing out water.. but not nearly enough volunteers. I found it like that most of the race. A few there were people there, but they weren't filling out cups and setting them down, just pouring as people came up. At one point I had to get my own gatorade and the gu stop was just boxes of gu with no volunteers that I recall.

And yeah.. WAY too many handing out medals. Gear check was it's own CF.

[flamingemu]

Mar 18, 2013 12:35:41 GMT -5 ebeth said:

can someone explain this 'get your own water thing' thing? what happened? I didn't see any of that?

I did get the general impression that there were simply not enough volunteers. all the volunteers I came across seemed crazy overwhelmed. too many people handing out medals, not nearly enough at gear check (@ either end).

You are much faster than I am, so maybe it was an issue with the back of the packers? There were what 4 or 5 tables at the first water stop? I only saw 5 total volunteers there. I had to pour my own water. The first race ever that I did not bring my own and I regretted it every stop.

[ebeth]

hmm. . .I don't think I stopped at the first one. I don't really remember though.

and there was one at the end where there were like two people filling up all the cups at one of the later miles, so they weren't handing them to us. you had to go pick it up off the table yourself.

but I'm not sure how that would change as the day elapsed unless the voluteers were all 'eff this noise I'm going home!'

all of this reminds me that I need to volunteer for some races and actually do some of this stuff. pay it forward and whatnot.

[flamingemu]

I usually volunteer at 1 race a year, but I definitely need to do more. I felt bad for the volunteers that were there since they seemed so stressed.

[Wines Not Whines]

I had to grab my own water and gu off the table, but I didn't mind that too much. I didn't have to pour my own, thankfully.

Gear check was a total debacle. Maybe they need to do it in the Armory again.

I also missed having access to real bathrooms. There were no where near enough port-o-johns before the race.