Jen and I don’t like crowds, perhaps that’s why we run as much as we do and also away
from those crowds.
The Rock and Roll race in New Orleans, Louisiana, 2nd one in the series calendar, was the perfect
early season race in early march sandwiched between the busy season of Mardi Gras and St.
Paddy’s parades. Everything was huge value for dollars including the flights. We were able to fly there cheaper than travelling to most other cities in the rest of Canada! We
even got a free car rental upgrade – the Maxima with Enterprise! Next year’s race will be
moving to early February for 2019 which may have even favourable weather. The
weather was in the high teens and 20s degrees C like our summer in August. For the locals I'm sure this was their cold season.
This race was in the heart of the swamp lands, the course elevation in general
is pretty flat, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t some awful little punchers in
the second half. With the except of Garden District, most of the marathon course would be under sea level which means increase oxygen doping! The unfortunate Katrina flooding in 2005 caused havoc in most of the swamp lands, which bought 12 feet of waters. Only the French Quarters and Garden District were spared because they were close the highlands bordering the Mississippi River, which was the first part of the race.
I think the course can be described as three general parts:
(1) scenic Garden District out and back which was shaded and protected from winds by the large trees.
(1) scenic Garden District out and back which was shaded and protected from winds by the large trees.
(2) a little transition to
cut through the historic French Quarters and the half marathoner turn into City
Park directly. The actual half way point of the marathon was on a climb up a
bridge. You can tell this is a City that welcomes the race if the course cuts
straight smack in the middle and stops traffic from both sides of town.
Compared to the Mardi Gras, this was probably chump change!!
(3) once you reach the
lakefront, there’s two more out and backs (BRUTAL) before returning back
down to City Park where the Half finishes.
Race start and finish are about 6km apart. There is a shuttle service in the morning to take you there.
How my race went?
I stayed with the 1:30 pace bunny along with some other strong half and full marathoners. I think there were points in the Garden District where we each exchanged jokes on engaging the bunny to stay for the entire marathon. I enjoyed the shaded portions and legs and cardio felt comfortable with the group. I hit the half mark at 1:29.
There was a few runners that passed me and a few that dropped back immediately at the half point. As we reached the lakefront the conditions got tougher. By this point it was becoming abundantly clear that pacing wasn't going to be steady and this race was going to be a survival race. Despite this, my age group rank throughout was consistently between 7-10th placing. So the race was pretty strung out for the marathoners at least. Finished 30th Overall with a 3:11. You'll know that the heavy positive splitting was because the course conditions. It would had been nice to repeat the garden district.
Funny that there was another little diversion at the finish and the marathoners were treated with a red carpet finish. I guess to compensate for the lack of the traditional finisher's jackets. Jen was able to point this out to me after the fact (I was in too much pain to appreciate the experience). ;)
Although the aid stations were pretty far apart, the water did stay cool with those giant water tanks at each aid stations. I really enjoyed that!
Katherine Switzer, first woman to run Boston, give two heart felt speeches at both the 5K on Saturday and half/full on Sunday. Like Jen, she got in the remix challenge for racing both days. Very inspiring, can you believe she's 71 years old?
Crawfish, was one of the many pre & post race food. Thanks for reading. :)
