Yesterday, I ran the 1st annual Safari Park (aka Wild Animal Park) Half Marathon. Most of the challenges didn't happen during the race. Heavy traffic and parking was a big challenge, and honestly there's probably not a good answer. When you're trying to funnel thousands of people down narrow back roads in the dark all at once, things are bound to get crazy. Once I got off the freeway, I sat in traffic for 45 minutes, and it was worse if you didn't take the 6:45am deadline seriously!
There were a lot of people who didn't make it by the time the roads closed down for the run, so they had to park several miles away and walk to the start line. Once parked and at the start line, things were very smooth. The course had a lot more hills than I realized, but I took the uphills and downhills slow so I wouldn't burn out my legs. I ended up finishing at 2:05, which was the same time I had for the Disneyland Half Marathon in September (which was completely flat), so I was satisfied with my time. The race organizer promised a lot of animal sightings along the way, and the announcer even told us not to bother listening to our iPods, because we would hear animal noises throughout the race. The only thing I saw were some cows along the road (outside the Safari Park), and a couple of hippos near the finish line. Of course, we were allowed to stay in the park after the run.
Yesterday, I ran the 1st annual Safari Park (aka Wild Animal Park) Half Marathon. Most of the challenges didn't happen during the race. Heavy traffic and parking was a big challenge, and honestly there's probably not a good answer. When you're trying to funnel thousands of people down narrow back roads in the dark all at once, things are bound to get crazy. Once I got off the freeway, I sat in traffic for 45 minutes, and it was worse if you didn't take the 6:45am deadline seriously!
No comments:
Post a Comment