State #9

Well.  It’s been a while.  I knew I was having to take a step back from traveling for a while, but I had no clue it would take this long and have a global pandemic blocking my return.  But after nearly six years, I’m still here.  And after six long years, I’ve finally completed the ninth state.  Will I make it through all fifty?  Ha!  I’m not even going to speculate any more.  Sure, I have hypothetical plans and ideas on how to finish all fifty perhaps by the time I’m 50 now, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  At this point, it’s going to be fun just trying to see how far I actually do get.  I may have to check out Mainly Marathons for a few series runs to help fill in gaps I might not normally or easily fill in.  One step at a time. 

Today it’s all about Montgomery.  The Montgomery Half Marathon.  The 2020 version was actually cancelled supposedly 20 hours before it’s start because at this time last year, the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, was just being labeled a global pandemic and one by one various local and state governments were starting to shut down life as we knew it.  One by one, basically everything was cancelled. 

Fast forward to March 2021.  Covid-19 has infected more than 370,000 in Louisiana killing over 9,000; infected nearly 30 Million in the United States killing over 545,000; and infected more than 119 Million worldwide killing over 2.5 Million.  And it continues today.  However, things have improved as well.  Some people are able to continue on with life safely wearing masks and taking proper precautions while praying that the idiots who aren’t don’t make us regret it.  In addition, vaccines are here and are currently in the process of being distributed.  Will they work?  Well, the hope is that they do.  The early data is promising.  I’m sure we’ll have to get through the next winter to know for certain.

So back to Montgomery.  Montgomery is one of a handful of places/events that are taking place so far this spring.  Two known others the previous weekend were the Louisiana Marathon series (which I did the quarter run) and The Woodlands Marathon over in metro Houston.  A number of others have already cancelled either until later this spring, later this fall, or outright for the year.  Montgomery decided that they felt like they could safely hold their event.  Overall I’d say they did a pretty good job, no better or worse than what Louisiana did last weekend.  Packet pickup was simplified, even more so than the Louisiana marathon.  There was no expo at all.  Just give your name, pick up your bag and that was it.  On race day, Montgomery went even one step further and had an open start line.  They turned the clock on around 6:50AM and you had the choice to start whenever you felt like it between then and 8AM. 

Overall, people were a little more spread apart before the start of this race than in Louisiana the week before, but Louisiana did standard corrals where they tried to space people out in between.  For every three people trying to abide by the distancing, there was at least one who wasn’t.  it’s to be expected now I guess.  There’s always someone who feels rules, policies or even mere suggestions don’t apply to them because they’re special.  In Montgomery, the race leaders opted to start the clock ten minutes earlier than expected which originally was 7am.  And a few elite runners took off immediately.  Then there was a huge lull where I think others didn’t know exactly what to do next.  So I followed a few people who decided now was a good of a time as any and we crossed the start line around 6:54AM.  Good thing too, because even though you could wait to start the race at 8AM, it felt like the 4-hour limit actually started at 6:50.  And I needed as much of it as I could get. 

This course had a lot of hills.  I even drove about 85% of the course the afternoon before so I saw them first hand.  I’m not sure if I’m happy or not that I drove the course before.  Usually, I don’t do that.  I like to be surprised.  I feel like I’m kind of glad I drove it first.  Because if I hadn’t, I may have risked overdoing it early on and who knows then.  It’s not like I’m in the best of shape now anyway, not after twelve months of pandemic for sure.  Last March I was feeling pretty good.  I had just done a 5K, a 10K and a 15K as well as a 2-3 mile second line parade and then a 7.5 mile actual mardi gras parade, so I was ready to go for it.  I had signed up for The Woodlands Half Marathon, Oklahoma City, the Viking in Greenville, MS, and was looking for more.  But the pandemic put all of those plans on hold for at least another year. 

So here we are in Alabama.  The races starts out pretty well, but it’s a good uphill almost right from the start.  The first of many.  I’ve already decided to basically walk up and take advantage of gravity down to hopefully make up some time and for the first four and a half miles it seemed to work pretty well.  I really didn’t want to look at my fitbit as much as I did but I was always concerned about pace because I did not want to end up taking 4 hours to finish.  I was actually impressed with my times going into mile five.  At one point up to then, I could see that I was on pace for a sub 3-hour finish, which I knew wasn’t going to happen because I was barely a third of the way in, plus hills.  And in mile 5, there were two pretty good hills, one ridiculously steep.  This was through the Alabama State University campus.  Once we made it out of the campus, I actually felt a short lived second wind.  Mile 6 was really good but mile 7 was the longest mile probably on the course.  For some reason it just didn’t feel right in terms of distance. 

There were rolling hills through the nice subdivisions there.  There were a few families out cheering us on from their yards.  The water stops were set up pretty well overall.  Some stops they put the water bottles on the table and you picked it up and opened it or did whatever.  I’d carry mine pretty much to the next stop.  One table they were actually opening them for the runners which was probably good for faster runners or people who wanted to chug the lil bottle right then but it was terrible for me who wanted to run with it a ways.  So I had to stop, take a drink and toss it.  The stop at mile 7 had bananas.  But nothing could prepare you for the hill in mile 10 up Perry Street.  That long single hill easily cost me a good fifteen minutes because I was dragging all the way up it.  And you get a good view of just how high you are once you’re at the top.  The street drops off the other side but we took a more gradual decline down some side streets.  Unfortunately I was just about gone at that point.  I think I only ran three or four other times after that: once down a hill, twice to cross streets when a guard was stopping traffic and one final half-ass jog at the finish because you have to.  Lol.  I’m positive that without that hill, I probably finish closer to 3:15.  And remove all of those hills and make it a flat course, I think I finish closer to 3:00 like in New Mexico. 

So, moral of the story… hills are the devil.  I hate hills with a passion now.  I’m going to try to never register for a course like that ever again if I can help it.  Ha ha.  But it was a pretty course.  And I can imagine the finish line party is probably a lot more fun in non-pandemic years.  The weather for this race was nearly perfect, if not a little warm.  The start was in the mid-50s but it quickly warmed up into the 70s and finished near 80.  I probably should have put on sunscreen when I thought about it but I decided to chance it.  I came out of it feeling a bit warm to the touch and a little red just around the neck where the neck gator wasn’t protecting.  That was probably the best part about wearing the gator they gave us; it protected my neck from the sun. 

Other key points: I can still do a half marathon, albeit slower and more sensitive to elevation.  Lol.  But I guess it gives me hope to continue onward.  I’m just not signing up for anything with sub three hour time limits anytime soon. 

Race: Montgomery Half Marathon

Date: March 13, 2021, Open Start (6:50-8AM)

Place: Montgomery, AL

Time: 3:23:14

State #8

Bib

Quick update since it’s been a while.  Money started to get tight in 2015/2016.  Then I started to eat poorly again and stopped running nearly altogether.  Then I decided I wanted to visit Europe at the end of 2016.  After a long delay, I’m feeling it again and started running again to finish the year and have some plans for 2020 if things go smoothly.  So to get the new year started, I’m going to recap a race I did back in 2015.

So they call it the New Mexico Texas Challenge, but unless it originally began as a race from New Mexico to Texas, I’m not sure why they still call it that because none of the races go into Texas at all.  They’re ran exclusively in New Mexico, just northwest of Hobbs, which is an interesting town.  After driving through hours of basically desert, Hobbs was a welcome site as it was quite a busy city, basically paid for by oil money, which in 2015 was still pretty good but I can only imagine what it’s like now.

A little quirk is that the town is basically located on the state line which is also a time zone border.  So I had to remind myself several times that all times were supposed to be mountain time and not central.  Which was good because it meant that it definitely wouldn’t be dark at the start of this race.

Start Line

The weather started off cold, about 35, but it was a very dry 35.  And it warmed up very quick as the sun came up.  By race time, it was easily 50-55 and by the finish, it was probably nearing 70 so it was quite comfortable.  I did have to use sunscreen for this race because most of it was ran in the desert with little to NO shade.  I applied sunscreen two different times especially in the last half of the run.

The 5K saw a good number of runners, but the half and whole marathons only had 100 or so max.  The half had 74 actually but I believe the whole had a few more.  And I’ll spoil it now, I finished near the end of that pack.  But since we started a little after the whole marathon and we ran a different route, I did get joined by a few marathoners towards the end of my race.  Otherwise I would have been alone.  This was definitely the smallest race I ran and there were a few times where I felt like I was about to be totally alone but it was never really bad, although it does hurt with motivation, because there’s just nobody around pushing you.  Luckily there was a little older lady marathoner who got me going again in that last mile.

All in all, it was a nice race with a pretty good finish line and recovery items.  I only stayed for a few minutes before changing and then heading out to drive to Van Horn, Texas.  That’s where I spent the night the night after and set out to hike up Guadeloupe Peak, the highest point in Texas.  Made it up in roughly 4 hours and back down in another 2.5.  This was a very adventurous trip out to West Texas and SE New Mexico.

Race: New Mexico Texas Challenge

Date: April 18, 2015, 8AM

Place: Hobbs, NM

Time: 2:53:55

Race #33 Overall

I ran this year’s Classic with the same friend and coworker who I ran it with last year.  May as well compare times.  But we both knew we would have bad times because we weren’t really ready for this race.  I’ve come to realize now anything that can go wrong for my body will usually happen early in the year, January to April.  Early on I was still nursing my foot from the Reindeer debacle and then it got super cold for a few weeks (yeah, I’m definitely chicken, I admit it now), and then I get sick again for a month.  In contrast, I ran my best during the fall last year.  So now I’m leaning towards scheduling major runs in the fall and just staying local in the spring.  Case in point, I ended up not doing a half marathon in Bay St. Louis because I was still nursing my upper respiratory infection and my lungs were nowhere ready to tackle the distance.  Hell, I could barely play my first fifty minute kickball game of the spring.  So all-in-all, I think I made the best decision by putting off the Mississippi trip.

Instead, I took on a local 5K and then a few weeks later, it was Classic time again.  I signed up late so i didn’t get my name on the bib or personal delivery.  Luckily, my friend was able to save me the trouble of making two trips to NOLA.

Race Morning!!!  Well, parking has changed yet again.  Can these people not make up their mind?  So I get off the Superdome exit planning to do what I did last year and behold, the road is blocked off.  They were now sending everyone into the Superdome lot.  So two years ago, Superdome was open, last year it wasn’t so I parked down the street, this year I can’t get down the street because they’re forcing everyone into the Superdome lot again.  Make up your minds people!  I decided not to wait in the huge long Superdome line (not to mention I wasn’t sure whether my friend was going to try to park in the original garage as planned or not).  So I found a way out and around the mess.  It was a long detour around the CBD but I was early anyway so I had time to kill.  Eventually, I made it exactly where I wanted.  But now the garage parking rate went up from $5 to $8, and that’s assuming I make it back to the car before 1pm, then it shot up to $20.  Oh, so maybe this is why I should’ve just stayed in the long Superdome line.  I was actually half an hour late leaving that afternoon but the lady let me out for $8 instead of $20 because the guy in front of me complained and I guess she thought I was going to complain too.  I thanked her, told her I was prepared to pay the $20 anyway and then complained about complainers like the guy who was just in front of me.  Haha!

The weather today is quite comfortable.  I remembered that in the last two years, I was hoping that it would at least be warm enough and not freezing.  That wasn’t going to be a problem this year, or so we thought.  By April 4 this year, it’s already been in the 80s for nearly 14 days and above 70 for the last month.  Now I was actually hoping that it wouldn’t be too hot!  Well, it wasn’t hot at all.  After a Good Friday where it was 87F, a cold front came through and dropped the temperature to about 56F, and it was drizzling rain.  It was a moderate rain while driving down to the Crescent City but it let up to a light drizzle for most of the pre-race.  At one point around Mile 3-4, it did turn into a moderate to heavy drizzle but it didn’t last long although it did make it very chilly.  But all-in-all, the weather was just about perfect.  The sun even came out later towards the end of the event.

The corrals were pretty much the same as last year and we stayed one behind the other to the start line, not unnecessary merging.  Although we did see plenty of walkers, strollers, dogs on leashes, grandmas with canes, etc walking past us in Corral E while we were in Corral F.  No way grandma with the cane is finishing under an hour.  Wow!  They truly just let people do whatever behind the elites.  Although I did find out that there was a way to pay towards charity, $200 or something, and you got to start as a charity runner behind the elites.  And this could be anybody really from fast people wanting to get a good fast time to slow grandmas who just want to be near the start.  😉

Another kind of crappy thing, They did not let us run on both sides of Poydras after the start.  So that made for a fairly tight beginning all the way down to Peters and into the Quarter.  It ended up not being a big problem honestly for me because we had already decided that we were going to take it easy, so we weren’t in any big hurry.  We didn’t dodge anyone really.  We found a good pace behind someone and basically just followed through the CBD on to the Quarter.  We also took a few pictures on the sidewalks.  So the crowds really didn’t bother me as much, because I wasn’t trying to get a fast time anyway.

Even with the rain/drizzle, I was surprised at who all was out spectating the run.  There were a few bands, one in Jackson Square.  The line at Cafe du Monde was long, as usual.  We saw two people running in front of us all of a sudden zip off into Jax Brewery, I guess looking for clean bathrooms?  Haha!  We saw tons of great costumes as usual.  We caught Moses standing in line for a bathroom on Esplanade.  We also ran past a bunch of storm troopers and one or two of those sand people from Star Wars.

Dragos was set up with the beer truck and I guess margarita mixes again.  A few other people had their own home made margarita mixes on the side of the road.  I swear, one of these years we’re going to stop actually running this and just walk and drink the route while walking with a fun float.  We saw plenty of them this go around and on the way back.

We finished it up a little slower than the previous year but were still proud of our finish, especially since we were walking the route back afterwards, plus it was raining slightly and a tad chilly but not cold by any means.  We got our post race beer and food and decided to head on back towards the Quarter early so that we could see as many people/floats as we could who were still traversing the route, and we saw plenty.  Only downside was that the Tropical Isle we stopped at the previous year for hand grenades was actually closed this morning.  Totally unacceptable.  But we still found drinks and pizza down the street.  The best part though was that they didn’t mess up my time this year.  Small downside, the finisher medals were a lot less special and more generic this year.  Still one of my favorite races though.  Can’t wait until 2016.

Race: CCC15

Date: April 4, 2015, 8AM

Place: New Orleans, LA

Time: 1:21:55

Jazz Bib

STATE #6

Well, so much for it being warmer.  I felt confident that New Orleans and Pensacola would be much warmer than Nashville.  Not that it was really cold in Nashville.  But with the temperature being as warm as it had been lately, I just knew it would probably be somewhat warm and/or muggy in New Orleans for the Jazz.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  If there was ever a race that I really just didn’t want to run at the beginning, it was New Orleans.

It had been in the 80s for the leadup to the Jazz.  Then a cold front swept through Friday.  It was still slower than originally predicted at lowering the temperature.  I got up and left Baton Rouge around 4:45am with the temperature still around 50 but the wind chill was already at 37.  This led me to believe that it was windy outside (which it was), so I took a limited extra set of clothes mainly for after the run.  I expected it to stay around 50 with the windchill rising enough so that there really wasn’t a windchill and I didn’t want to be hot while running.  I didn’t expect for the temperature and windchill to continue to drop while I drove to New Orleans.  Granted, it was only about 46 in NOLA (although it eventually dropped to 37 in Baton Rouge for the air temperature).  But the windchill dropped along with that.  It felt about 32 or worse even, or maybe I’m just a wimpy southern guy who doesn’t know what real winter feels like.

Cold Start

So once I got parked in NOLA and got out of the garage (thank god for not pre-paying for open lots and sticking to my plan of parking in the Whitney Garage on Camp) and felt what the wind really was feeling like, I seriously reconsidered running the event.  Visions of Little Rock started running in my head, and I was thinking that I would never purposely run an event like that again if I knew what to expect ahead of time.  But alas, it wasn’t raining at all.  As a matter of fact, it never rained with the whole frontal passage.  So I had that on my side.  I also had the fact that I had paid for, woken up for and driven an hour down I-10 for this race.  I decided to walk to packet pickup and at least get my gear for the sake of getting it.  I picked up the bib and shirt and went straight back to the car.  Holy crap it was cold!!!  So now back at the car, I spend a few minutes convincing myself to suck it up and run it.  May as well at this point.  First, I immediately put on the cotton pants that I had saved for post-race.  I figured no way my legs were going to make it exposed like that.  I had a cotton shirt but really didn’t want to wear that because I knew I’d sweat at some point and then I would really wish I wasn’t running out in that air.  Luckily, the Jazz gave out some really cool sweat resistant t shirts.  So I left the underarmor top on with the longsleeve wet proof shirt I got in Philly over that and then put the Jazz shirt on top of that.  At that point, with the shirts and pants on, I figured I had a chance.  So I was able to suck it up and go for it.

Superdome

The pre-race was pretty disorganized although people just seem to be stupid at this point.  I mean, it was publicized all over on the website, the packet pickup, the emails… the half marathon started at 7:00-7:05am while the 5K started at 7:30am.  But once at the starting line, there wasn’t a real clear indication of this.  So ultimately, a ton of 5K people started off with the half marathoners.  Ha!  On top of that, it’s amazing how people have no clue about wave or corral starting either.  Even though it was publicized heavily (stupid people), the Jazz did a terrible job at actually corralling people.  They put up three signs all very close to each other and then just left it to people to figure it out themselves.  Big mistake.  People can’t figure out anything for themselves anymore it seems.  So ultimately, you ended up with a load of walkers at the start again.  Now before you jump on me, I honestly don’t have much problem with this personally because I’m not fast.  I think it’s great that they’re out there to begin with.  But sometimes I feel for people who are trying to navigate through a sea of slow 5K walkers when they should have lined up in the back.  Having said that, I find it hilarious how medium to fast runners can line up at the back of the pack and then bitch about slower people in front of them.  Hey, space cadet!  Perhaps you should have lined up somewhere in the middle or closer to the front.  (Ok, I just got that Space Cadet term from a co-worker who was trying to politely belittle another co-worker for being a moron.  I like it.  Haha)  So I just think that if you line up towards the back of the pack, you really don’t have much room to complain.  I like to pass someone as much as the other person, but you can expect some groups blocking the way at this point as well.  Get over it!  But this does explain why I saw a few kids running and even a stroller because I thought strollers weren’t allowed in this race.  I also thought it wasn’t good (and sometimes not even allowed) for kids younger than about 12 to run in a half marathon.  I heard one person ask a lady and her little daughter if they were doing the 5K around Mile 1 and she replied ‘Yes’.  Well that answers that.  Looks like 5K people left with the half marathoners.  I wonder how that worked with regards to time.  It was obvious that the race organizers knew it because they were separating 5K people from the crowd at the 5K point when I passed it.  5K runners went straight while half marathons turned right onto St. Charles.  So what happened if they finished at 7:31am?  Did they have a net time of 1 minute?  Haha!

Streetcar stop

So, yeah, it was cold.  But it also wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was going to be.  It was manageable.  It also helped later on with getting into the sunlight.  It was a little colder in the CBD with the buildings and starting before the sun came up, but the buildings also acted as a buffer with the winds at times.  Every now and again there would be a massive gust and dust would go flying.  I even saw one dust devil that went right through the runners.  All you could really do was turn your head and hold your breath to keep the dust out of your mouth.  Needless to say, people were coughing and spitting like crazy during this race.  Luckily they had water pretty frequently.  I had heard that they didn’t have enough water in previous races where it was 75F.  I feel like they had plenty for this race.

Many houses along St. Charles were decorated for Halloween.  Some were pretty elaborate decorations.  It’s not easy really to drive down St. Charles and see these decorations.  Sure, it’s easy if you’re riding along but if you’re driving, St. Charles isn’t an easy road to drive down as it’s generally tight, lots of traffic lights and traffic, you really have to pay attention to the road here.  This was one reason I really wanted to run down St. Charles, to appreciate the stately oaks and houses a little more.  I was surprised that they actually closed down both sides of St. Charles for this Saturday morning race.  Of course the streetcars weren’t running as that might have caused a hazard for sure.  I didn’t realize they had so many great restaurants along St. Charles also.  It was also a great experience to run through Audubon Park which is a great place for runners/bikers.  Even without being in the actual zoo, it felt like a bird sanctuary with all sorts of birds everywhere.

Audubon Park

Before reaching the park, I did notice the lead runners heading back to the finish.  Ian Carr was second and ended up finishing second.  I had run in a few races with him this year and he just seemed like an exciting young area runner that everyone was sort of rallying behind.  I think he won the Jazz in 2013.  He won all of the bridge series races this year.  That’s where I experienced running with him.  Of course he was ridiculously faster than me.  Lol.  This year in the Jazz, he was beat by a Baton Rouge native who had a two minute lead over him towards the end.  WDSU had a report that he was actually new to running but I sort of wonder how new really.  He’s about the same age as Ian and wore a Varsity sweater post-race.  That’s a local running group in Baton Rouge.  Looks like he actually is a part of staff with Varsity Sports and ran at George Mason College.  So maybe he’s new to the half marathon distance.  Either way, he finished the Jazz in 71 minutes!!!

Finish

After the race, I got my medal, ate ice cream and an electrolyte ice pop (go figure, right?) and hurried back to the car to turn the heater on.  Then after a few minutes of warming up, I just drove back to Baton Rouge.  It would have been nice to stick around a bit, eat lunch, have a hand grenade (yum yum), but I was cold (and sick by the time I got back to BTR).  I was glad to just get home and sit in a hot tub for the rest of the day.  I stayed cold for about the next 36 hours afterwards, but then I warmed up and the potential sickness seemed to go away also.  Strange how that happens, huh?  I will say, I felt like I had a cramp coming on towards the end of this race.  Both times I felt a cramp about to kick in was at cold weather races, Little Rock and New Orleans.  I’ve definitely decided that unlike most people, I’m not a cold weather runner.  I was born and raised in the deep south where it’s 120F during the 6 month summers and can easily be 80F at any other time of the year.  I know people hate it, but I seem to be able to manage running in 80F way better than 40F or a cold windchill.  Granted, that’s because I haven’t come up with appropriate winter weather running apperel yet but I don’t know if I could.  I always feel like that if put on one more thing, I’m going to sweat too much, and of course if I start to sweat then I’m only going to make myself colder in the long run.  So give me a good hot summer run any day.  At least then I can just take my bottled water and pour it over my body and feel fine.  😉

Medal

So now it’s on to Pensacola where it looks to be somewhat similar in temperature but hopefully no wind.  If there isn’t a strong wind, 45-50F would actually be quite comfortable to run in.  But I’ll be honest; at one point there was rain in the forecast and if it were 45F and raining, I would have canceled for sure.  Instead, it looks to be perfectly sunny and well into the 60s by lunchtime.  Not perfect beach weather, but I’ll take it.

Race: Jazz Half Marathon

Date: November 1, 2014, 7AM

Place: New Orleans, Louisiana

Time: 2:41:45

I was sort of interested in this series last year but didn’t do it for a variety of reasons.  I think one weekend there was a conflict with another race, and then after the Classic in 2013, I just didn’t want to drive back down to NOLA so quick.  This year, I had a friend and coworker convince me that we should do this.  So we did.  All three runs are put on by different organizations so they differ in degrees of preparedness and support but one of the NOLA running groups decided to put all three together as a part of a bridge series.  If you complete all three, there is a medal.  There are also awards for finishing times of all three runs combined.

April 5th – Hale Boggs Bridge (St. Charles Parish)

Hale Boggs

This was the first of the three.  It had been a cold winter, but it was beginning to warm up fairly nicely.  This particular morning was still a bit chilly.  It started off around 50 that morning, maybe getting up 56 for the race itself and it was overcast.  This race had a 5K and 10K option; however it was noted that your total time would be counted towards the series time no matter which one you did.  We couldn’t figure out why anyone would do the 10K then unless you were already sure that you didn’t care about the series and just wanted to run the 10K.  So we did the 5K.  The 10K started about 2 miles down the road and ran on top of the levee to our spot.  The timing was odd because after about 75% of the 10K runners ran past us on top of the levee, our race started down along the road.  We made a U-turn on the road after about 1/4 mile while the 10K group had to go about a mile down the road before their U-turn.  So this meant that we began to merge with the 10K group pretty quickly after our start, which definitely caused a few problems I heard.  I also had a problem with navigating around walkers and strollers as there was little effort to segregate people by pace in any of the three races.  It took me nearly a mile before I was around the slower groups and on a steady pace that I was comfortable with.

Of course, I still took plenty of pictures.  Sure, I hate people who stop in front of me suddenly to walk, talk, tie a shoe or take a picture.  That’s why I make a huge effort to get along the edge of the course or to at least make sure nobody is behind me before I do anything different.  I try to get over to the edge, especially for pictures and tie a shoe (although I haven’t had to tie a shoe yet in any race I’ve done – knock on wood).  I might stay on course to walk but I make sure nobody is anywhere near behind me before stopping.  Anyway, the point is that there was a lot of complaints about people stopping to take pictures and yes, I saw plenty that could have been more tactful with how they did it.  But being as I took pictures too, I’m certainly not going to complain.  It’s not often you get to run/walk across huge bridges over the lower Mississippi River, so who wouldn’t want to photograph the moment.  But please people, have respect for your fellow run/walkers.  That’s all I ask.

This bridge was basically a straight up and down with a curving off ramp towards the end, plus a false hill right before the end because the off ramp has to go back up and over a railroad track before reaching the River Road and the finish line.  What a perfect place to take race pictures of participants, right at the apex of the false hill where everyone is already mad and tired from having to make one last short climb before the finish.  Haha.

Of all the races, I found the post race support the best for this one.  There was a small medal for the St. Charles bridge run.  You were also given cold water, along with plenty of other opportunities for cold water.  There was a great band playing and there were beaucoup food opportunities, all free.  The shirt was really comfortable too.  I went into this race thinking that this one would be the worst, but being as it’s been around probably the longest, it was actually the best.  The timing wasn’t great though.  There was a start time and a finish mat, but no start mat.  There were also inmates manning the janitorial duties at the finish under watch of the local sheriff’s department, which just felt a little creepy at times.  I can only imagine how the women and children felt.

St. Charles Race Time: 0:33:03

May 3rd – Huey P Long Bridge (Jefferson Parish)

By early May, there was little fear of it being too cold again.  Summer was already setting in.  This race actually marked my first time over the Huey P since the reconstruction project which was probably one of the largest projects in Louisiana history.  They took the two narrow steep lanes and turned them into three huge wide lanes with shoulders and made the ascent more gradual.  This required some major bridge work as the original structure was already established and somewhat narrow to begin with.  The bridge itself was opened in 1935.  So I was interested to see what the new structure looked like, post construction.  Wow, impressive.

For the first race, we had a choice to park at the start or finish and bus to the start or back from the finish.  I found it easier just to park at the finish and bus to the start.  For this race, everybody parked at the finish and bused to the start.  Luckily we had a huge Walmart parking lot to use, but the whole area is in a very congested part of metro New Orleans, Elmwood.

We used school buses to bus back and forth.  We were bused to a very wooded sort of secluded area off to the side of Highway 90 on the Westbank near Bridge City.  I found the start very odd.  It just didn’t seem right at all.  The water also tasted funny but it was good and cold.  There was also a drone flying overhead taking pictures and video of all of us throughout the race.  That was neat.  The start area and mat weren’t impressive as it was constructed at the last minute, but in the end, timing for this race was the best of all three.  There was a clear start and finish time and timing seemed to go perfectly.

For the first race, they closed off the shoulder and one lane.  For this race, they closed off the entire eastbound span.  Nice.  So we had the whole highway to ourselves for about an hour.  This gave us plenty of time to run and take pictures.  I think on bridge support with water was the best for this race as well.  The offramp to the finish line was a straight shot.  The shirts were nice also.  Several runners dressed as Huey P Long himself.  There was a lot to like about this race.

The finish area was odd though.  It was dirty, sort of grassy, in the area between the two bridge spans, and at a major intersection.  So there was a lot of traffic to navigate once the bridge and roads reopened which could have been quite dangerous for people with children.  No medals were given, but we did get a nice glass.  The food was also pretty good too but the choices were a little less than in St. Charles.  The band was just as good though.

Overall, I thought the timing was best at this race.  On road support was great.  The course was fairly easy, the straightest and probably the most gentle uphill but a steep downhill.  Maybe it shouldn’t be on a Saturday morning to avoid some of the traffic.

Huey P Race Time: 0:30:09

June 7th – Crescent City Connection (Orleans Parish)

For this race, once again you had the option to park at the start or finish and bus to the start or vice versa afterwards.  And once again, I found it much easier to park at the finish; although, that could have been an issue.  For starters, you have to go to the start (on the Westbank) to get your gear and bib, unless you pay the $5 to get it delivered to you, which I did.  I really didn’t want to park on the westbank and bus back afterwards.  But they don’t give you much direction about parking at the finish either.  Because of the lack of direction, and the general knowledge that there was plenty of parking near the finish, it was assumed parking wouldn’t be an issue.  But when we arrived, almost all of the general knowledge lots were closed, and a few of the smaller nearby ones wanted $10+.  In this regard, the race did a poor job in notifying participants about potential parking situations.  So I had to go look for roadside parking in the neighborhood nearby that wasn’t illegal, which isn’t always the easiest thing to find in NOLA.  There are permits required for most neighborhood parking and then general street parking can be hit or miss with all of the Do Not signs for various reasons.  After a couple of circles and realizing that I would have to walk a good ways back to the race area and buses, I finally found a roadside spot.  Of course the advantage of this was that I didn’t have to wait long from catching the bus, getting to the start, and actually starting the race.  Unlike the previous two runs, this race was 4 miles in distance and not a 5K.

This race certainly had the most participants.  The St. Charles run had 1600.  The Jefferson run had 1200.  This one had at least 2200, but we never know how many for sure.  There were major timing issues with this race.  Turns out that supposedly there were 1300 registered about a week before the run.  Then all of a sudden over 1000 registered in the final week which totally screwed up the race’s plans.  They ended up being way short on shirts, so I didn’t get a shirt in my size.  As a matter of fact, I had to drop down two sizes just to get a shirt, so I just gave it to someone else.  The timing mechanism supposedly was new, perhaps experimental.  So it ended up missing a lot of the runners as they crossed either the start or finish.  I was one of them, AGAIN.  Of all the runs I’ve done now, this is the second that had a timing issue for me personally and it just happened to be another race run by Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Crescent City Classic.  All I can hope is that they get their timing issues taken care of by 2015.  There are two other smaller CCC runs later this year, but I don’t intend to do either.

As far as this race went, this was June.  And the race started at 6pm, which was too early to be honest.  It was 94F at the start of this race.  Yet the CCC advertises this as a sunset race.  So they really need to push it back to 7pm or later.  Or, perhaps they should reschedule this race for earlier in the spring, or back in the fall like it was originally scheduled.  This race had a few more rolling ups and downs and steep curves due to the road construction of the HOV (carpool) lanes.  It hurt my feet more than usual around those curves, and it hurt more because of the heat and lack of water on the bridge itself but otherwise I felt fine.  There also was a serious lack of post race support, food after the race.  There were only three food trucks to pay for food and two had stranger food (not what I’d consider after race foods) plus the snoball truck had serious mechanical issues.  I never got a snoball.

So all in all, I rate this race the worst of all three which surprised me since I was expecting this one to be the best.  That disappointed me.  But the views from this bridge are definitely the best.

CCC Race Time: 0:45:13

Personally, my thought is if they’re going to turn this into a series run, perhaps one organization should manage all three to give it some consistency.  But each has it’s good and its bad.  I would definitely want to do the series again, but as said before, the CCC needs to get their timing issues corrected before next year.

Video from all three runs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NChTQAMOGuk