I'm running in the Asheville Citizen-Times 1/2 Marathon on Saturday.
And if you follow me on Twitter you would know that I am none too happy with the race organizers about this particular race.
For the last 11 weeks, I have been training not for this race, but for the NYC Marathon. But I strategically registered for this race as a tune-up for NYC. I want to get a good feel for racing, distance and to be honest--have friends join me in the race atmosphere and celebrate the achievement of having trained for such a long time. I still have 6 weeks to go until the NYC Marathon so this was a important time frame to get me to my "final push."
I had spent some time during my day on Monday on the race website to confirm final details and get things in order for the race week ahead. That is when I noticed an important piece of information I had overlooked in all the weeks prior.
Race Start Time: 6am.
The National Weather Service notes that sunrise is 7:23am.
I would like to finish my race by 7:45.
So I will have 20 minutes of daylight while running.
Also--my family doesn't wake up until MINIMUM 7am on a Saturday.
Am I going to assume the same for the rest of Asheville?
I really was hoping for a fun race atmosphere in my home city on a beautiful warm September Saturday.
My race will have been over for HOURS by the time the weather rolls out.
I feel really disappointed and frustrated. So, I'm running 13.1 miles in the dark. By myself on Saturday.
And I paid a lot of money to do it.
You can believe that I won't register for this race again. I feel duped by the organizers. They took a lot of runners hopes and sold them out to a potential sponsor who doesn't want runners blocking its entrance for hours. (MY THEORY)
This is why they call training for a marathon one of the hardest things you'll do in your life.
Dealing with frustrations, disappointments and annoyances but still having to run through it teaches you so much.
I am learning.
I don't know what yet. But I'm learning.
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