Chronicles of the North Face Race gone awry…PART I

 

After 5 long, hot & humid months of training, I finally arrived in the DC area, ready to tackle the North Face 50 miler. I found the north face store location pretty easily. It was right near my hotel, so I went there straight from the airport to pick up my race bag. Excitedly, I smile at the check in guy and tell him I’m checking in for the 50 miler. He gives me my bag and I’m feeling great. Another runner shows up to get his and I ask him what race he was doing. He said, “oh, I hurt my ankle so I’m not running, I’m here to pick up my wifes bag. ” He must have seen how excited I was because then he said, “you know they cancelled the race, right?”Me: “what!?!” “Are you serious?” He went on to explain that NF sent emails out the night before about what happened and blah blah blah… I stood there completely shocked while holding onto my little race bag. Because I was so dismayed, I said to him, “are you joking?” “Nope. Totally serious.” I walked out of the north face store and back to my rental car. I was totalluy dejected. Now what?I checked into my hotel and then called josh. He was the one person I thought would understand the level of disappointment I was feeling. I didn’t get him and didn’t leave a message. A few minutes later, he called and I explained what happened. True to form, he really got it and I totally appreciated talking to him and getting some moral support. After hanging up, I felt better but also felt like I really needed to clear my head. So, I went for a run! I settled for the gym treadmill since it was pretty humid out. Ran 3 miles and lifted some weights and it helped clear some of the funk in my head.

 

After getting an early dinner at the hotel restaurant, I popped over to the “meet/greet” event at the hotel. Lots of runner showed up and we got an “official” explanation of why the race was cancelled. In a nutshell here it is: Governor of VA declared state of emergency, therefore all state agencies/employees get called or need to be on call for most needed areas. Our event was a low priority and therefore we would have had no EMTs, no search & rescue, no radio folks, etc…Freaking Hurricane Hannah…thanks a lot!!