I think I’m just about dried out now from running Bull City Race Fest back on October 20th, 2019.
This was easily the wettest race I have ever participated in. The rain was coming so hard at the beginning of the race, that the road at the start line was a literal river, soaking everyone’s socks and shoes.
I’d ran Bull City Race Fest a couple of times before and have always had fantastic weather. Not this time.
There was a poncho in our race packs, which I picked up the day before. This was very thoughtful, thank you! I did wear it while we waited for the race to start, and then threw it away when it was time to run.
I hadn’t run 13 miles since running a marathon back in March. The most I’d ran was 11 miles a couple of weeks prior to the race. So there was a little apprehension as to how I would perform.
Would I be able to run the distance? Would my injury come back? Could I finish it within 2 hours? Why did I not stay in bed? All these questions were running through my head.
You can see from the photo above, I did not manage to finish in under 2 hours. In fact, I was 15 mins slower than the previous year’s race, and 20 minutes slower than my half marathon PR.
In saying that, I was still OK(ish) with the 2:10 finish, and feel that without RunCanvas’ help, it would have been a lot worse. Janell’s coaching prepared me well for this race and I found it very beneficial.
The rain pretty much washed out the usually great after party as well. All I wanted to do was go home. So I grabbed my beer and off home I went.
The rain was not the only disappointing part of this event. I did not like changes to the course this year. There were several turnarounds added deep within a Durham neighborhood. It felt like I was on a training run trying to fit in a couple of extra miles while staying close to my house.
I used to love this race because the route was mainly through the city streets, and it kind of lost that feel this year. I can’t see myself signing up to run it next year, which is a pity. Time to try some other races.
Alastair Vance 