Reggae Half Marathon 12-1-20122

I ran the Reggae Half Marathon in Negril, Jamaica on Saturday December 1. We picked up our packets the night before. The race started at 5:15 in the morning. Chevaughn and I caught a shuttle from the hotel at 3:45. A.M. The race site was just three miles down the road, but we were worried all the other runners would be getting on the 4 o’clcok shuttle and there wouldn’t be room for everyone.. They had 500 or so runners for the half, 170 for the full marathon and over 600 for the 10K.

We all gathered in the darkness. They didn’t have any porto-potties, but that was no problem as people were free to use the bushes. The initial part of the start was lined with people holding torches. Later the light was provided by the moon or the neon signs of business as the route ran into the town. At various times I smelled fish and ganga.

The road was a mix of stone and building materials was hard on the feet. The rourte was out three miles, back toward the start, then out three or so miles in the other direction and then back to the start/finish. The full marathon ran the route twice.

They had sound systems playing reggae, lots of Bob Marley, throught the route that was very nice. They had water every mile. Instead of cups, they had plastic bags of either water of electrolye drink. You grabbed the bag as you ran past, bit the corner of it, and then sucked the water out as you ran. It was great. I could drun and rink at full stride, an then when I’d had my fill, dump the rest over my head.

There were also quite a lot of walkers we had to weave in and out of at the start, but eventually it thinned out. Even though it was still dark, I started to sweat by mile three. By mile five the sun was starting to rise above the mountains to the east of us and was quite pretty. Once the sun was up, it was hot and I knew it was affecting my pace. I didn’t run with a watch and there were no times on the course other than at the halfway point, but I could see I was not going to get any personal records.

But, as they say in Jamaica, “I soon come,” which means I’ll get there eventually. It may be in a ten minutes, it could be two hours or might not be till tomorrow. I trudged along, getting slower and slower. I took my first walk break at the seven mile mark, and walked for one minute at each mile marker thereafter.

The last mile, they called Bob’s Mile. And every 1000 yards or so they had a sign with lyrics from a Bob Marley song. I would sing the song to myself until the next sign and then start with the new lyric. It helped quite a bit. “Lord, I got to keep on moving.” “Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be alright.”  "Don't Give up the Fight!"

As I neared the finish, I could hear the music of the party, and had enough strength to run in and finish strong. They had wet sponges to cool yourself off with, and then the best treat. Everyone got a fresh coconut, so we could drink the coconut water, which is quite refreshing.

They also had free Red Stripe Light, which I had after drinking quite a bit of water. I wished I had run in my trishorts as I could have gone right into the ocean at the end as the party area was a park on the beach.

Overall a great easy going race that can be combined with a nice vacation. There were many hotels/resorts within easy access of the race start/finish. People came from 38 different countries to run.

My official time was 2:35:41.

Another interesting sidelight was the results included an interesting statistic. Age adjusted result. According to these, instead of finishing 298 out of 464, wth my age graded percent was 44%.

http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?rid=4621&race=1250