This was supposed to be my first half marathon. But since I registered nearly a year in advance, I was able to get a couple in prior to this race. I’m glad I did or I might not ever have run another one. The pre-race was fine. It was so crowded my husband was never able to find parking to come in with my daughter and I, but we made it through the expo and were fine.
We were in coral 15 and thought we’d be in front of the walkers. We were wrong. It was so dangerous trying to navigate around walkers taking up the entire course. I didn’t want to lose my daughter so we were weaving around people and I was terrified that one of us was going to get tripped up. By mile 5 we were still unable to even hit a 10 minute mile! It was so congested! By mile 8-9, we’d run out of water and grabbed a drink. Yes we were two of the people who got sick right after the race!
Then we hit the finish line and came to a complete stand still. We were stuck and were cooling down quickly. Luckily once we got past the “blanket” area, we were able to get through the crowd. It still took us over 20 minutes just to get through. By then we were freezing and quickly getting sick. I loved the experience of racing with my 14 year old daughter on the strip at night. But I would never race another RnR event again. Especially reading about how they regularly use fire hydrant water.