Peapod Half Madness

I jumped into a half marathon on Sunday. Kind of literally. My friend Allyse was running her very first half marathon. She tweeted something about it, and I realized less than a week before the race that I had 13-mile long run on my training plan that day.

I asked her what she thought about me jumping in and running with her and maybe helping her pace (not that she really needed me to). She seemed excited to have someone to run with. But I didn't really want to pay $80 to run a race that I wasn't actually going to "race." So I figured I would just be Allyse's pacer.

So.. there's my confession. I bandited a race (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, "bandit racing" means to run a race without registering). I did bring my own water and gel, haha. I also took an old bib number and folded it over so you couldn't tell it was actually from a Turkey Trot several years ago.

It ended up being a disaster though. I started off the race and felt great, besides a little bit of a stuffy nose. Then about 5.5 miles in, I had to let Allyse go ahead of me so I could use the port-a-potty (the first time I have ever needed to during a race). Honestly, I'm not sure what happened.. if it was some kind of bug or I ate something that I shouldn't have, but I actually had to stop at every port-a-potty for the rest of the race (super-embarrassing). And a 7-Eleven employees-only bathroom, after promising the sweet old guy that worked there that I would buy coffee from him after the race. And I actually did go back too and ended up buying a gatorade to say thanks.

But yeah, I did finish. I figured I was supposed to run a long run that day anyway, so I might as well finish. I had to walk for part of it because of my messed-up system, but I paused my Garmin for that. So I only ended up running 11.9 miles. But with all the times that I stopped adding up, my clock finish time was around 2:45. Yikes. There was actually hardly anyone still finishing at that point, since it was a smaller race (less than 2000). When I turned the corner to finish, it would have been more noticeable if I didn't run through the chute so I went ahead and went through it. They had a whole bunch of medals left (with maybe only couple dozen or so runners left to finish) so I went ahead and took the one that they gave me. I felt guilty.

The medal also functions as a beer bottle opener. 

But then my dad pointed out that I never got to run the half marathon that I signed up for in April (because of James's R&R getting switched on me) and surely there was a handful of people that couldn't make it to this race, so maybe it kind of evens out. But it's kind of funny that I got sick (not at all at the time) in retrospect because it's almost like it was racing karma or something since I didn't pay.

In other news, I just registered for a 20-mile organized training run that's in a couple weeks. Yikes, I'm nervous. The marathon is coming!

Have you ever bandited a race before?