At the post race party we actually got our finisher medals. Of course this is silly... Getting a medal without doing the race and in my case not even doing the distance that day. But they already had the medals and the date was engraved on the back, so they were not able to use it for next year... Probably cheaper for them to hand them out than having to scrap them.
Here it is. The little silver one for half and the bigger golden one for the full... They are pretty, but I much rather would have liked to earn it.
The regional running blog community is buzzing and there seems to be an agreement, that the city of Myrtle Beach (they pulled the plug, not the race organization) overreacted with their decision to call off the race. A simple delay to an 8am or 9am start would have been plenty of action. Still no word about possible partial refunds or a discounted entry for next year's race. I know they state a no refund policy, but I read online on Saturday that there are talks about those options.
I felt disappointed and I still feel a little disappointed. The first thing I did after assessing the conditions on the streets from our hotel room on Saturday morning was looking up the next half close to home and actually, there is one in Columbia on the 27th. For a brief moment, I thought about doing it, since I already put in the training. But in the end, I am not willing to spend that kind of money so soon again. Especially since there is a local duathlon (5k run, 15 mile bike, 5k run) put on by the Upstate Tri Club that is free for members. Spending money on registration fees and have to drive 2 hours to the race or spend nothing on registration fees and drive for 15 minutes. Yeah, in the end the decision was pretty simple. Also, the tri season is here soon enough and I need to start getting in some quality time on the bike OUTSIDE and not on the trainer.
And since I already put in the miles, I might go ahead and do the Green Valley 10-miler. That distance as a race would be a first for me too... PR time! ;-)
I just registered for the 10 miler and decided against going for another marathon immediately (Jacksonville, FL next weekend?).
ReplyDeleteAnd I think they did the right thing canceling it, even though I was completely bummed out by it. I wouldn't have felt safe out there setting up the course at 3am with traffic driving by!