Well, I’m an idiot.
That’s why half is in parenthesis.
Aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye. (Aye.)
Please keep in mind – in case this helps to act as any excuse at all – that leading into this (half) marathon, a LOT was changing. I had to get rid of basically everything in my LA apartment to make room for another person. I was starting a new job, and apartment hunting in NY. (I’d actually finally just found one.) Things were moving faster than I could handle.
I still wanted to do this marathon, because I’ve promised myself I will do a marathon every year for the rest of my life (since my first one (in 2012)).
I think it was a little foolish to stick with this one specifically though. I didn’t pick it for any wildly crazy reason. I just chose it while I was living in Los Angeles because it was close and easy. When it became no longer close, I should’ve highly considered picking another one. But I was all, “No, no, no. I need to go back to pack anyway, blah blah blah.”
But I was exhausted. And I really didn’t have the time. It took up way too much of my Saturday to go down to Long Beach. (The blue line was under construction, so it took longer than usual.) And I was just thinking the whole time about how much packing I had to do. Oof.
I needed to sleep for approximately 1,400 hours. But instead, I rolled myself out of bed early Sunday morning to get down there.
I made a fateful mistake during the race… We didn’t run by a lot of establishments. It was a lot of the beach. The electrolyte drink was nuun, not Gatorade. The weather was legitimately over 100 degrees. I was going quite slowly. I didn’t need an electrolyte drink – or any other fuel, really – when I stopped around 10 1/2, running into a 7-11.
And yet, I went in. I was like, “I haven’t seen any place I could grab anything for miles. This may be my last chance in a while. Better do it now.” (The 7-11 didn’t even have Gatorade, btw!)
When I came out, I sort of looked around and even got a little confused because I thought I saw some cones to my right, but saw people running to my left.
Well, if indeed I saw cones to my right, it’s because that’s where the marathon course went!
I should’ve studied the map. Really, the blame is on me.
There were some unfortunate circumstances though. Because of the heat, they allowed the half marathoners to start an hour and a half early (with us marathoners). Had the course not been quite so full of half marathoners at that point, it might’ve been a little helpful for me.
Also, usually races have someone at the turning point yelling out to turn. There’s often tons of signage just in case runners aren’t paying super attention. And I know we should be! Again, I can’t actually blame anybody but me. (But wouldn’t be great if I could a little? ;))
Sigh.
In my haste to get back on the course, I didn’t look too hard at where I was going or what I was doing.
My head was more darting around looking to see if another place had Gatorade. Then I just abandoned that idea because it didn’t seem to matter in that moment… But while my head was darting around at tops of stores, I missed the sign closer to the ground that said to turn. Guuuuh!
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.