Reggae Race Report

me n Juice, at the finish line

The emails I'm receiving have been growing more and more surly, so here it is! The Reggae Race Report.

Overall, I had a really, really tough race. It was humid, I was nauseous, my nutrition went out the window (because the more nauseous I felt, the less I could face eating, therefore the more hypoglycemic and nauseous I felt. See how that works?) And the night before, the locals brought MONSTER speakers to a park about 300m away from us, and played the music so loud Jenn could hear it through her ear plugs! She was actually tapping her foot, with her ear plugs in, while wishing she could be asleep. So yah....4 hours sleep before a big race isn't totally helpful.

But other than that, the race was really good. It was well-organised. It started ON TIME (the only thing on time in Jamaica, as far as I could tell!) at 5:15 AM, in the dark, obviously. Jenn and ran together for the first 4 miles, at a good pace. But at that point, she asked how I was doing: "I'm f'ing dying!"

Oh dear, not good, still 9 miles to go!

Once I passed the 6 mile/10 km mark, I was really feeling gross, but realised I was on holiday, in Jamaica, and this was supposed to be fun! So, I took a good long break to take photos, drink gatorade from a baggie, walk, feel better, and notice that the dawn was INCREDIBLE!! The sky was pink, but the sea was a turquoise that I have never seen before in my life. WOW!

Anyway, the course was flat, the scenery was pretty great, the volunteers were excellent, the organisation was good, so managed to suck it up, and finish the race. NOT my personal best, but hey, it was Jamaica mon!! It was my personal best time on a tropical island paradise! (PBOTIP)

Costume: as we all know, I like to wear a costume in my runs, but I have been getting smarter about this. I wore a Bob Marley bandanna - simple, appropriately themed, kept sweat out of my eyes! And I wore my RunClub shirt from last year's Vegas trip, PLUS a bracelet given to me by my runpal Kerri. Gotta keep my peeps wit me :)

Couple VERY cool things though:

They called the last mile "Bob's Mile", as in Marley. So every 150m or so, they had a sign with a quote from the Reggae King! Since I just needed a way to keep myself carrying on, I took pics!

And the second VERY cool thing was that at the finish, they had Red Stripe BEER for the finishers (admittedly, this nearly killed me) and fresh coconuts. They say the coconut milk is better than gatorade, as it's full of electrolytes, etc. Anyway, it was far more FUN than gatorade :)

The third EXTREMELY cool thing was that once you leave the finish line, you walk across the beach, and I went for the BEST SWIM OF MY LIFE.

Wow, totally earned it, saw a southern sting ray as I was going in, and it was fantastic!!

OK, so my final assessment is that the race made a great excuse to go to Jamaica. the run was FREAKING hard, but it meant that I could eat, drink and be merry with no weight gain. I LOVED Jamaica, so am seriously thinking I might go back next year and do the FULL marathon. Obviously JAMAICA ME CRAZY!!!!