Joker's Wild Half Marathon Race Report

Do you know how some people dread a race so much and then get started and think "hmmm, this isn't so bad after all"?

Yeah, I am the opposite. I can convince myself that a race that I have run before that is HILLY and miserable wasn't so bad. The Joker's Wild half marathon is HILLY. It is two laps of a hilly 6 mile loop.

Let me back up to the day before the race, though.

I decided that we would venture over toward St Louis in the afternoon. Time kept getting away from me, and we didn't wind up leaving the house until 3pm. My daughter drove. The plan was for her to drive most of the way there and switch before we got to St Louis. She only has her permit, and she has only had it for just over a month. She was NOT comfortable driving in St Louis. As we got closer and closer, she just kept on driving and wound up driving all the way to the hotel. She actually did a fine job, especially if I didn't watch the road. :-P

We checked into the hotel and ventured over to Westport Plaza to start looking for something for dinner (I drove). Instead of dinner, we wound up at Coldstone Creamery. Just like last year, we were sitting outside eating our ice cream when we saw my friend Carol and her hubby. Deja vu.

We chatted for a bit, and they went on to eat dinner. I needed to find something for breakfast the next morning, so we found a Target and did a little shopping. $320 later, we got out of Target. How do they do that to me every single time?

After that, we ventured over to the Galeria and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. Yeah, I know, such healthy choices, right? The kids had never been to a Cheesecake Factory, so I took them.

The next morning, I drug myself out of bed at 5:45am and got to the race start at about 6:40am (race start time was 6:45am).

Pre-race:

The first lap, I was feeling pretty good. I even ran up the hills. I started to remember how hilly the course was once we hit the first of the hills. Carol was struggling during the first lap, but she kept up and we ran the entire time together. Here we are running up one of the smaller hills.

We managed to get through the first loop, but I knew there was NO WAY I was going to run up all of those hills again. We walked several times during the second loop. A couple of the water stops of each loop were handing out ice cold sponges. SUCH a great idea. I probably looked like I jumped in a pool at the end of the race because I kept soaking myself with the water every time.

After suffering through the second lap of the race (the second lap was miserable), we finally came around the bend just before the finish line:

And finished!

Garmin said the race was 13.3 miles and we ran it in 2:34. Last year, I ran this race in 2:17. Ah, well, I'm about 15 lbs heavier. This is just one more thing to motivate me to stop being so lazy and to lay off the tortilla chips.

And, on the way home, my daughter got to drive in the rain. It poured on us all the way home. I'm glad I didn't have to drive in it! But, don't be so hard on me, she is required to drive at least 10 hours in inclement weather before she can get her driver's license. I didn't make her drive in the rain just to be mean.