Race Recap: Fox Cities Half Marathon

Fox Cities Half Marathon Race Report

When: Sunday, September 18, 2016

Where: Appleton, WI

Weather: 60s and sunny

Division: Competitive Walk, with age group awards

I was really looking forward to this one, because it is the first time I’ve done a race that had a proper walking division with three awards per age group (the age groups span 10 years each instead of 5 in the open division). My goal was to walk around 2:50 (13-minute miles) and place in my age group, preferably to win my age group. The weather was fairly nice, although I could have gone about 10-20 degrees cooler at the start. Still saw tons of people dressed in multiple layers.

Gun went off and the first 2 miles were into the rising sun. Very blinding! I missed the first mile marker. We turned north right before mile 2 and I saw that I was at exactly a 13-minute mile. Kind of disappointing because there was no room to slow down, but it’s tough at the start of a race. Competitive Walk starts 5 minutes after the Open Division, so I had to walk around a lot of slow runners and run/walkers in the early miles. Many of them like to walk in packs, which is frustrating to circumnavigate.

At around the 4-mile mark I heard a woman behind my right shoulder “whisper” to her friend, “let’s hurry up and pass these WALKERS.” As she and her friend jogged ahead, I yelled to her “STAY ahead of me, then!” Besides that one awful woman, I didn’t get any disrespect as a walker in this race. I think most of the people who were in the back of the pack in the Open division had a normal level of humility and grace, and they were pleasant race companions.

Near the 5-mile mark, we had to cross a major road, and there were cops directing traffic. Unfortunately, one cop kept letting people in cars go past and made the racers stop. We had to wait until this cop decided to stop letting cars go through, and a bunch of us were pissed. We had momentum going and he was ruining it. Finally after about 20 seconds at a dead stop, we were able to go again. This is not acceptable and I hope it doesn’t happen again in the future. Future Cops: stop the cars, not the race. They knew about the street closures beforehand and they could have gone a different way.

At about 6 miles I was on track to finish in under 2:50, but I was starting to fatigue. It was fairly hot by this point (upper 60s) and not as breezy as I’m used to in my windy hometown. It was also an extremely flat course. I have written in my blog about training for specific race conditions, but I had been doing my long workouts in fairly hilly conditions, and as a result my glutes and quads were on fleek. My hip flexors, however, were dying in this race, and I could feel it. I had no idea this course was so flat. There was no elevation chart on the website. My bad. It was flatter than the Chicago Marathon. It was flatter than Disneyworld! There were maybe two or three tiny slopes the entire time. Yeah, my hip flexors were struggling by mile 10. Lesson learned: do more flats in training.

The last three miles were extremely scenic. At two points we crossed long pedestrian bridges over a picturesque lake and through lovely parks. Then around mile 11.5 we entered a brief industrial slum, which made me laugh, because literally EVERY race takes you through a brief industrial slum, and it’s usually near the end. It was very brief, though, less than half a mile, and we ended up in downtown Neenah. The fire department had a sprinkler out front which I enjoyed. All the volunteers and spectators were great this entire race, actually. Every water stop had water and Gatorade, and several had oranges, bananas, and Gu. It helps that the half marathon course runs concurrent with the marathon course for the first two miles, then the last 9 miles. All the “last 9 miles of a marathon” refueling perks were available to us halfers!

The finish chute was lined with people, none of whom were cheering at all. That was a bit odd, but I’m used to it. People don’t really cheer much for walkers in general. They did stare at me as I walked on through, though. Crossed the line about 2 minutes slower than I’d planned, but considering the flat and warm conditions I wasn’t surprised. Got my finisher medal and finisher shirt, a few bites of food, and stretched out while my family found me.

I went to the results tent to see what the verdict was. And I won my age group! By 12 minutes! I suppose other folks had issues, too. The awards will be mailed out in a few weeks, so I didn’t have to stick around for a ceremony.

Race Pros:

Walking division with age group awards. This is rare.

Great water stops.

Good weather for an early-fall race.

Everything ran on time.

Indoor areas to hang out in pre-race, including real bathrooms.

Flat course. (Most people love it.)

Race Cons:

Flat course. (A bit TOO flat for me.)

Post-race food was limited a bit, especially for being the end of a full marathon as well. I got a quarter of a bagel, only to find that it was GARLIC flavored. Whoever thought garlic bagels were a good choice for nauseous runners post-race has never done a race before.

Point-to-point course. This is not my favorite, sorry folks. I prefer a loop. I don't like having to take shuttles around to get my car afterward (or a shuttle beforehand to leave my car at the finish). Fortunately my fast husband finished over an hour before me, so he got the car solo.

Confusing organization. Don’t get me wrong, this race was very organized, it just came across a bit poorly in certain respects. Like, if you wanted to find the bag check area pre-race, you better have a map of the start area, because it is not intuitive and there are no signs. Also the expo/packet pickup was a bit of a cluster. There were two different areas you HAD to visit to get all your pre-race stuff, and they were on opposite ends of a labyrinthine building.

Overall, I will give this race a solid A-. The flat course and garlic bagel took it down a tiny bit, but the fact that there is a walking division is a huge plus.