The first thing that happened was that 1 mile in I went to take a sip of water and discovered that my water line had completely frozen. Completely. In fact if I squished my bite valve ice came out. In less then 10 minute I went from having flowing water to carrying around a slushy. For me this was huge. I tend to sip constantly during a race. I dehydrate quick and this has been my best solution. It also allows me to just keep on truckin' past water stops, and when you are slow, every second counts. Suddenly I had no water and I've never done a half marathon only drinking water at stops. My plan had to readjust fast and I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend the rest of the race worrying about water and dehydration. In fact I stopped for water at every table and hit up the port-a-potties more often then usual jsut to make sure I was keeping hydrated. I stopped my watch whenever I stood in line because I was surious how much time I was going to lose. My watch time had me finishing right under 3 hours, my official time was 3:15, which means I lost almost 20 minutes getting water and waiting in bathroom lines. I wasn't running for time or anything, but it was interesting to see how much time those things cost. 

The second thing the cold weather attacked was my phone. I keep in my vest pocket and at mile 5 it just shut down completely. At first I thought the battery died, but what really happened was it got so cold it couldn't function anymore. So I ran the last 8 hours without any tunes. Whicch left me a ton of time to think about my frozen water. 

Still, these are minor things. I managed to finish the race, It ended up being a beautiful (if brutaly cold) day, and I met some runners along the way that I had a blast running with. Especially a girl at the end who asked me to run it in with her. It was her first half marathon, and she wasn't sure she would make it. So when we saw the finish line we ran in together and we talked about what to do after the race (smile for the camera, walk it off and grab as much free food as you want). It reminded me of what a great running community we live in! I was also super proud of my co-worker who finished his first half at this race. It was a lot of training, but he did great. It was also nice to have someone to hobble around at work with on Monday. 

I'm not sure I'd do this race again and road running in the city isn't really my cup of tea, but it was a wonderfully organized race, the post-race party was a blast and medal was fabulous. If you are looking for a half to do, this is a great one!