My first Crazy Legs

Crazy Legs is a zoo.

There are tons of people running the 8k race, a good portion of them in costumes, a rocky theme at the 4 mile mark and beer handed out at the end.  It's a race, but one that people seem to do just for the hell out of it.  It was quite different from the Black Earth 10 mile race, which consisted of regular racers, only about 200 people, and minimal hoopla.

The weather sucked on Saturday.  It was in the 30s with rain and biting wind.  As I lined up waiting for my wave to start, I jumped up and down to stay warmed up and watched as the light rain wavered on the verge of becoming icy hail.  I had zero motivation to run Saturday morning.  I was certain that I'd run this 8k as slow as possible.  I had registered as running it in 45 minutes, feeling that that's an optimistic estimate given my Black Earth performance at the turnaround.  I was certain while stretching in the US Bank Plaza that I'd run it in about 55 minutes and thought about moving back in the wave.  Who really wants to watch everybody else pass you anyway?  But I didn't, mostly because the weather was so terrible just standing and waiting that I wanted to get running as quickly as possible.  Truth be told though, I thought about just not running altogether.  I swore up and down that this would be the last Crazy Legs.

Then I started running and it was awesome weather.  I've been spoiled with our recent string of 60 degree sunny days because I've forgotten how awesome running in high 30s can be.  The rain had died to a mist by the start of the race.  I did the first downhill mile in just under 8 minutes.  The second mile up Bascom and Observatory took about 10 minutes.  Next mile averaged at 9 minutes, and I skipped the water break.  I crossed the finish line in 44:09.

Pros to Crazy Legs are that wave starts lets me set a pretty good pace.  I know relatively who I started with, making it easier to be sure I keep pace with them for the 8k.  The Rocky theme definitely puts a boost in your step at mile 4.

But it's a bit of a zoo.  One runner stepped right in front of me at the water stop after grabbing his cup, slowing me down to a crawl as I tried to navigate around him.  It made my decision to not stop for water feel rather moot.  At the end, when I wanted to sprint the last bit, I had to dart in and between runners who were instead slowing down.  At the last turn, I thought I'd take an inside track around the corner but instead got caught behind two runners who suddenly decided to walk the rest of the way. 

I've got the Lake Monona 20k in 6 days before I finally run the half marathon at the end of May.