Wildwood Half Report

Well another race in the books....the Wildwood Half Marathon was this past Sunday, August 26, 2012.  It was supposed to be nice weekend at the shore but mother nature had other plans.   For those of you who live in South Jersey or are frequent visitors, you know how Saturday night into Sunday morning was.  It rained it's a$$ off.  I had never heard thunder like that in all the years I can remember being at the shore.  I woke up many times during the night to check my iPhone and see the radar for Wildwood.  I kept checking my email just waiting for it to say the race was cancelled, but was happy each time I had no such mail.

After finally getting some sleep, I was up before 6am and scarffed down a bagel and gatorade and headed into Wildwood by 6:15am.  As I came over the Rio Grande Bridge I could see some slight blue sky and little bits of the sun.  As I drove into town, I went right passed all the flooding along Pacific Ave, so I knew then the run would go through a few puddles.  I do most of my training runs in Wildood when I am visiting my parents so I was interested to see how they would pull this race off.  Stephen Del Monte, the Wildwood Tri Race Director was the race announcer and kept saying they had 2,000 runners so it was going to be a tight start line.

Pacific Ave looking South, we ran North

Driving Eat towards the Race Start

 

When I parked my car, I was really early, so I just sat there trying to relax and stretch.  I was close enough that I could hear the race announcer directing everyone, so I knew it was race on.  They had plenty of pre-race activities and porta Johns for you, so no long lines.  CGI does a great job at races and I have done their NJ State Triathlon a few years ago, so I knew there would be no glitches logistically.  There are always problems with participant interpretations of the rules and announcements.  The corrals along the Boardwalk were tight.  They had pace groups starting at sub-7 minute mile pace going through above 11-min mile pace it appeared, so a place for everyone.  You still have people who run 9-min miles go to the front and slow it down, but I guess they have no idea what the pace time really means.  I started between 7 and 8-min mile pacers and finished averaging 7:22 per mile.

 

As usual from CGI, the race started right on time.  Before I knew it we were flying north along the Wildwood Boardwalk.  At the end of the boardwalk you hit the street, JFK Boulevard.  At that intersection was a huge puddle.  So many people were going around it by running an extra 2-300 yeards.  I went right through it.  While on JFK, I saw a friend standing outside her hotel.  Maureen yeld over to me and held up a beer can to miotivate me.  It was perfect comic relief.  The run along the street was right into a what felt like a head wind.  You snaked through North Wildwood and Angelsea along the sea wall and out towards Stone Harbor along the Ocean Drive.  You cross over two good bridges then hit a flat wetland section.  Once out there you could really feel the temperature rising off the black roadway.  I hit the turnaround and felt pretty good and crossed paths with a few people I knew.  The course doubles back on itself.  The strange thing was the wind did not change...still a head wind.

Check out the towel on my head...I was hot.

 

Coming back into North Wildwood along JFK Blvd, was hot.  I could already see people getting the monkey on their back and we were only at 9 miles.  I tried to stay even paced.  I passed Maureen again and this time gave her a nice sweaty hug.  Her daughter loved it.  Back through the big puddle at the start of the boardwalk, stilll saw people running around it...made no sence to me since I was soaked from sweat and water I dumped on my head.  The run down the boardwalk was pretty easy until mile 11.5.  Then we made a turn off to the street for the last few miles that was like a lolipop out and back.  The turn around put you close to the beach again, along the bike path in Wildwood Crest.  The finish was along the beach just off the boardwalk.  It was a nice finish line since the boarwalk is elevated above you, so all the spectators could look down as you finished.

The finish area for athletes is awesome....food, water, medics..top notch from CGI Racing!!! Can't wait for the Blackbear Triathlon next summer.

It was a great race and I finished in 1:37.21, slower than I had hoped but good enough for 45th our of 1309 and 5th in my age group.  Gearing up for the Atlantic City International Triathlon on September 15, 2012 then Pocono 70.3 Ironman (September 30), and finally the Philadelphia Marathon.

Back to school time in the Seedes house, Cathy is very happy!!!!!