The remnants of Ike ventured through Missouri Sunday morning! I was able to take full appreciation of what was left of the storm with wind and rain because I was running in the Lewis and Clark Half Marathon! Yes, while Ike was rumbling though the St. Louis area a bunch of crazy people including me and my friend Nikki were out running in it! For those of you who have been to races before, this was way different. Because of the storm is was darker than normal at 6am when we arrived to be dropped off. (Todd was a little apprehensive about us getting out of the car, but he wished us well and hung around for awhile in the car just to make sure.)
You can't put up banners and those nice balloon arches in 20 mph winds and driving rain and expect them to stay. The normal sound systems that would be used to communicate to 5,000 people don't quite work in those weather conditions either. Everything was very unassuming all around us with most people wearing trash bags. We honestly had no idea where the starting line actually was until we were there, we were a herd of people lining up (there were pace signs so we knew that we were somewhat in the right place.). There wasn't even a clock at the starting line that we could see. You will often see people wearing trash bags before a race to keep them warm to be discarded at the starting line. In this race, most people kept them on. I had a rain coat and a hat so I didn't do the trash bag thing but was still easily soaked through after a couple of minutes outside.
The first mile was pretty much into the wind and rain and running by cars with people who hadn't made it the starting line yet. I mostly remember feeling it pounding on my lips and some wind gusts that felt like I wasn't moving forward. When we were running with the rain it was quite bearable especially after being soaked completely already. The temperature was about 70 which wasn't bad because we were moving. We changed directions quite a few times through the course and so we were with and against the rain off and on and exposed and sheltered from it. It was very much about putting one foot in front of the other. The people manning the aid stations were wonderful mostly because of their cheers! I didn't know the course well enough to know that we were cutting off three miles because that loop was getting flooded by the greater amount of rain fall than we expected (about 5 inches in a couple of hours). They cut everyone (marathoners and 1/2 marathoners) off at 10 miles because of flooding and other deteriorating conditions.
It was kind of disappointing to not do a complete race, but because of the conditions, we have more of a story than a running race on a nice late summer day! The race was scheduled to start at 6:45. We started late and we finished after running about an hour and a half. By the time that we showered, there were sunny skies and it was a very pleasant day and Ike had moved on to visit my family in Ohio! So, we didn't have a full fledged hurricane force storm, but we did have a named storm here in the middle of the country during a memorable moment! I'm sorry that my cousins weren't here to experience it all with me! Hopefully our next race will be much better weather or another experience to share!
Some pictures of me are here. http://www.backprint.com/go.asp?38298957
Some great u-tube coverage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63jy8ihP0xc showing the conditions when we were getting out of the car!
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