BACKLOG
Lets Move Festival of Races
Last year was the first year I ran this event. Mentally I felt down for most of the race, physically I felt a bit off; I ran my fast official half marathon it was also the last race I ran. This year, I was in a good place mentally but a tad unsure physically. When I signed up I wanted to better last years time, my goal time was 2:10.
I felt the best way to accomplish this feat was to run smart, and have negative splits. The backside of the half mostly comprised segments from my daily running routes, surely that would give me ‘mental’ lift. I felt strong for the first 6 miles, with a nice pace; then it happened. No I didn’t hit the wall, the slight nagging pain in my left knee wanted some attention. The next 7 miles was less than ideal yet I managed to finish a tad over 2:20. Heading into the last week I kind of expected I would run a 2:20, goal accomplished?
Official Chip Time
This year also marked the first rendition of the full marathon for this race. I do think that took away some of the overall organization found in last years race. For instance, day one of the expo seemed a bit disorganized, the first water station was out of water (the also ran out of GU at the GU stop), some mile markers seemed misplaced, and the event organizers still have yet to figure out a bull horn is not the best way to disseminate information at the start of a race. It’s a hard job, and I’m sure adding a full marathon to the slate of events is a daunting task. We always notice the little, and sometimes big, things that go wrong; we often overlook hundreds of items that work and worked well.
I’m just left with one question, when did they change the full marathon route? I know the route the participants ran seemed saner compared to the orginal plan.
Oh, and the finish line pizza just seemed better this year, total win.
Rant
The biggest failure by goes to the State; we need a dramatic shift in road maintenance and repair. It is hard to imagine anything failing more than our roads, yet on May 5th Prop 1 will undoubtedly fail. With its failure and no other viable solutions on the horizon we must endure more more paved roads turn into a mound of gravel.
Polls show that Michigan voters’ top two spending priorities are infrastructure and education, yet currently Michigan spends less per capita on bridges and roads than any other state in the nation, and this legislature has overseen a cut to the foundation allowance of $648 per pupil. Huffington Post