{"id":43571,"date":"2024-11-16T14:28:24","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T19:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=43571"},"modified":"2024-11-16T14:28:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-16T19:28:24","slug":"the-riddle-of-revel-big-bear-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=43571","title":{"rendered":"The Riddle of REVEL Big Bear Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

When is a marathon only 13.1 miles?

When you get this text at 2:33 AM:<\/p>\r\n

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I actually didn’t get it until I pulled into the parking lot at 3:06 AM. \u00a0They offered marathoners the option to run the half and still get a refund on their race — which is incredibly generous given it was a weather issue that precluded the event. \u00a0Ice and snow at the top of Big Bear Mountain made road conditions impassable — there was no way to get us to the start line safely. \u00a0I suppose we could’ve all donned snowshoes and braved the elements…<\/p>\r\n

I was already up, I was there, I was gonna have to run SOMETHING today as I had overindulged in carbs to prep for a marathon… so I got on the bus and we schlepped halfway up the mountain.<\/p>\r\n

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If the challenge was no longer to run 26.2 miles, there’d be a different challenge to face: there’d be about 4,000 people running the half marathon now… and services might be a bit stretched.<\/p>\r\n

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But that’s all part of the game, right? \u00a0You never know what kind of day it’s going to be until you’re in it… and sometimes then, only later, after the fact, can you really understand what kind of day it was.<\/p>\r\n

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Because the marathon buses still departed at their scheduled time, and we only needed to go half the distance… we wound up waiting at the start line for almost 2 hours before the starting gun. \u00a0It was a cold, cold morning. \u00a0But not nearly as cold as we would’ve been at the marathon start line… so suck it up, Kevin!<\/p>\r\n

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The race itself — mostly downhill until maybe the last 2-3 miles which were mostly flat… with a small gradual minor incline in the last mile. \u00a0I’ve run it as the second half of the full marathon so it wasn’t necessarily surprising, but it was a bit surreal to be hitting the miles without the 13.1 before…<\/p>\r\n

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The biggest logistical failure, as I don’t count the weather against the organizers, was the gear check\/bag drop system. \u00a0I ran the 13.1 miles in just under 90 minutes. \u00a0When I got there… and I was probably middle of the pack in this crazy fast event… the gear check trucks hadn’t arrived yet. \u00a0It took about 30 minutes for the trucks to get there, another 15-20 minutes to unload and sorta sort the bags, and then only because I had been waiting toward the front of the line, I was able to get my bag within 30 minutes. \u00a0Getting my bag took longer than the running. \u00a0A truck took longer to get down the hill than I did running. \u00a0Madness. \u00a0Utter madness.<\/p>\r\n

And so my 2024 running schedule ends not with a marathon but a half-marathon curveball. \u00a0Seems on brand.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When is a marathon only 13.1 miles? When you get this text at 2:33 AM: I actually didn’t get it until I pulled into the parking lot at 3:06 AM. \u00a0They offered marathoners the option to run the half and still get a refund on their race — which is incredibly generous given it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43571"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43616,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43571\/revisions\/43616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}