RnR Mardi Gras Marathon: Race Report

Time: 3:25:30 (A new PR by 4 min!)
Pace: 7:48
Place: 262/3509 overall. 41/??? AG

Average HR: 193(!!!)

Ah New Orleans. Where else can you see grown men in business suits making complete fools of themselves? (Admittedly, this report is a little long and is honestly more for my own personal log than for anyone else’s benefit. Feel free to either read, or do with the paper and just look at the pictures.)

On Saturday, I picked up my packet and checked out the expo. It was a smaller expo with not much free stuff. That is ok, because I got my bib and a free cool Brooks technical T. Mission Accomplished.


On Sunday, when I woke up and started to put on my clothes and gear, a wave of fear struck me: My knee straps were missing!! They somehow didn’t make it from San Jose to New Orleans – I guess. Either that or one of the maid staff thought that they needed a pair of horribly smelly straps who’s Velcro didn’t work very well anymore. Either way, thankfully I had some paper tape that would work just fine – I hoped. (and it did)

Still no hair on my upper legs. Bummer.

I had my wife drop me off near the start and she headed back to get ready to follow me around. I honestly need to find a happy medium between being late and jogging to the start (Fargo) and being CRAZY early to the race (RnR AZ & RnR MG). I was a full 1.5 hrs early and was one of the first few hundred people there. This gave me time to do nearly everything that people do before races: Sucked in carbon monoxide by the generators, got a bottle of water, checked my bag, stretched, chatted up a few runners, tried to see any if any girls were wearing booty shorts, peed, and tried to find SMS James.

James was one of the other Co-Hosts during the Runners Round Table podcast that I also Co-Hosted. He is running ALL of the RnR events this year – 14 in all. So, if you are doing any of the halves or fulls, look him up on his blog or on twitter. Fortunately, he was able to find ME amongst all of the crowds and we ran nearly the entire race together.

Start – 10k:
Honestly, not much to say here. The gun went off, James and I ran and chatted each other up. After a bit of a slowish start, we hit our stride around 7:37 pace (~3:20 marathon). James is beside me in the blue.



10K- half:
Same here I guess. Doesn’t everything good happen during the second half of a race anyway? More running, more chatting. I LOVED running with James. I normally fly solo when I run, so having someone to talk with was a great change. We crossed the half way point at 1:40:38 – So I guess it is good to know that I have a 1:40 half marathon in me!



Half – 20 miles:
Ah yes, things here start to get interesting. First, around 15 miles, we entered into the city park. Of course, since New Orleans is a bit of a bog, everything was still very very green. Of course, that also means mud – which means that if you just so happen to be a rookie cop and pull off the side of the road to direct traffic, you WILL get stuck. We ran right by as a tow truck was pulling up to pull him out. Everyone that I was running with at the time had a good laugh at his misfortune. I’m sure that the people he worked with did too.

I told James around mile 14 that I probably had my pace through 20 or 22 and then all bets were off. He hit a rough patch around ~18 or so (check out his blog above for his recap) so I went it alone for awhile with only Kanye to help pass the time.

20miles – finish:
Here is where the REAL fun begins. This section started out a bit interesting. Right around mile 20, a drink girl gave me Cytomax instead of water. This wouldn't be a big deal, except she was screaming "water, water" and I dumped it RIGHT on my head. Awesome - and sticky.

My pace slowed from 7:40 to around 8:15 during these miles. Mile 21 was my slowest @ 8:35 when I stopped to water someone's tree. It looked thirsty, trust me. Miles 22 and 23 were really a struggle. The only thing that kept me going was some sort of oxygen deprived math error that had me finishing in 3:20 if I kept a 8:00 pace. I kept the pace but crossed the finish line in 3:25. *shrugs* Still don't know what happened there.

Once I finished, I did the normal "collect as much free stuff as possible" walk. I grabbed 2 bottles of water and 3 bottles of Cytomax. I had drank 1 bottle of water and 2 bottles of Cytomax (56 oz) before I got to my meeting area. It was my own personal (half) gallon milk challenge!

Here are a few pictures from the finish. Sister Hazel was really good, the Miller 64 was about as good as you would expect.

Warming up with a NASA approved blanket with my really cool medal

James and I reunited at the end

Stretching it out

What would a rock and roll race be without 64 calories of Miller?

For some reason, once I got 3/4 of a beer in me (40 calories), I spontaneously started showing everyone my boobs. Strange.