Race 3 Run the Reagan

February 2011

I walked (did a bit a running) the ‘Run the Reagan’ half marathon in Snellville, GA.  I fully expected this to be a very boring event as the Ronald Reagan Parkway is a seven mile long four lane divided highway.  So it was 6.5 out and 6.5 back.  Plenty of songs on the ipod helped though.

It was a beautiful day, got up to ~70 degrees by the end of my time out there.  I wished they would have started at 7:00 AM instead of  9:00 though.  This was unseasonably hot for this time of the year – virtually all of my long walks so far this year have started out in the with scraping ice off the windshield  so I was not prepared for this heat wave.  Also the back half was facing the sun – way too hot for February.

This event was a 13.1/10k/5k/5k untimed/1 mile fun run with about 3000 people.  About 400 of those did the half.  Race support was generally pretty good.  Before and during the race there was plenty of water, powerade, and easy access.  At the end it was a different story – you see this was a road race event and a community ‘festival’ event. They had a bunch of games, face painting, and such – all of this made it very crowded – waited in lines for bagel and banana – but at least there was something left by the time I got there, so no complaints – but it was brutal standing out in the sun after spending 2:57 doing the half in the sun.

Next up is a trail half marathon, Thrill in the Hills.