Urban Cow Half Marathon Race Report Part One - The Bitch List

I'm just going to get this out of the way out front, because then maybe I can stop obsessing about them and get on with the important parts.

Shit that really fucking annoyed me about the Urban Cow Half Marathon:

1. The fucking unreal volume of gel wrappers littering the road. Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with you people? Are you expecting the Cow Fairies to flitter along behind you & pick that shit up? Look, I know you fast runners usually go out in just your underwear, or whatever, but you packed that shit with you somehow. How the fuck hard is it to put the empty back where it came from? Do you really think the people who live in the very nice neighborhoods we ran through will want us back next year after they spend the next month finding tinfoil packets? Would you?

2. The talkers. Y'all should already know that I'm slow as fuck, so it should be no surprise that the group I spend the most time with during a race is the run/walkers, the walkers and the other slow as fuck runners. I'm not going to say this is true of everyone or even most everyone, but there are certainly those in this group that really aren't working that hard. And, you know, I'm not going to judge that. It's their experience, not mine, and I would hope that they are creating their own best experience. But OMFG the talking! I'm sure this is stupid and petty, but it really annoyed me, especially when I didn't have the energy left to get far enough away from the talkers to not have to listen to it. And the one lady who was not only talking with her walking partner but making phone calls?!? SHUTIT.

3. The Beer Garden. A big deal was made about the post-race Beer Garden, with beer provided by Sudwerk Brewery and special wristbands given to race participants of drinking age to assure that they could get their post race beer. Nothing, however, mentioned that the beer was $3 a cup (although you could get a "free sample"). Um? I know this is my first time to the rodeo, but I've been to plenty of events and I can tell you that I'm pretty fucking sure that you can assume something is free if a price point isn't mentioned. The price isn't even a big deal, but because nobody said anything about having to pay for post-race amenities, I didn't bring any money. Because why would you schlep cash on a race for no apparent reason?

4. I have no idea where the post-race food was. I accept that I was tired, not entirely on my game and really ready to leave, so maybe I overlooked it. However, I asked the Monkeys, who had been tasked with checking out the vendor booths while I was running, and they said they didn't see any food, either. Just me? I don't know. Interested in playing hide & go seek with oreos & bananas after running for three and a half hours? Not even kind of.

5. Everybody behind the wheel of a moving vehicle within about 5 miles of the entire event needed a solid bitch slap. This goes out to the dude who made a u-turn around us while SweetPea was trying to make a three point turn at the end of a blocked road, all the idiots who didn't understand why the road closure signs they'd been seeing for the last few days meant that, yeah, you're not driving across this road anytime soon, and to the bicyclists using the trails even though all the entry points had signs saying the trail was closed due to the half marathon. This does not apply to you because why, again?

Oh don't tell me you've read this blog for more than five minutes and didn't think I'd have this much to say about things that annoyed me about the race. Three and a half hours is a really long time to spend finding targets for one's crankiness.

Tomorrow I'll have the real race report for you. You know. About actually running the half marathon and not about things that make me bitchy. Complete with pictures!