Haunted Hustle 2012

The Haunted Hustle half marathon was tougher than I had expected.  I signed up for this one back in May because my friend Joe had told me it was a flat beautiful course through the woods.  In August, they changed the course.  Did you know there are hills in Middleton?

About two weeks before, I went to a good form running clinic at a local shoe store.  I was tired of injuries from the half I've been doing and I didn't see how I'd be able to train and complete a marathon if injuries keep cropping up and keep me from running for a week or more.  Hell, I'm starting to think about possibly completing an Iron Man someday.  So my friend suggested I attend this clinic and figure out what some of the issues are.  It was a 2 hour course that had a lot of information that I already knew, but the 15 minutes of information I didn't know were pretty valuable.  I tried this out at my next run and I was a convert.

They warned us, however, that there will need to be some retraining of muscles since we haven't been using them.  I had gotten up to 8 miles running this way, but nothing in the double digits. The 8 miles felt good, almost easy, so I figured 13 would be okay.  Even for the Mini-Marathon in August, I'd similarly only gotten up to 8 miles the week before.  What was perhaps a mistake was me going on a couple of long bike rides the week before.  The weather was nice and I knew I didn't have many more opportunities for my bike, so I went out for a 16 mile ride.  I should've worked up to 16 miles.  My hip flexors were sore up until the day before the race.

Here we are at the start.

It was cold and rainy at the start.  My sister got up this morning and announced, "I don't want to run in the rain."  My mom said incredulously the day before, "there will be rain?!"  I stepped through a puddle or two almost immediately and ran with wet socks. Thankfully, my socks were decently wicking and I had no blisters at the end.  I kept pretty good pace for most of the race.  I was decently ahead of the 2:00 pace group until about mile 9, and then I started feeling my hip flexors.  I kept going, but I could hear the 2:00 pacer creeping up on me.  At mile 10, we hit the Middleton hills.  I cursed all of suburbia for these stupidly unnecessary hills which I was sure only exists because city planners figured everyone had cars anyway.  Here, the 2:00 pace group passed me and I lost them.  On a seemingly never ending hill, everyone around me was walking, and I struggled 90% of the way up before I also gave in and walked about 30 feet to the top before running again.

I finished 2:08:18.  Not a personal worst, but also not a PR, and certainly not goal.  I think I'm done for the season.  I am burned out on racing.  I had no motivation after mile 8.  Usually seeing the mile 10 and mile 11 markers motivates me to pick up pace, but this time I didn't even care.  I just kept my slow turtle crawl.  I couldn't muster motivation when I saw the mile 12 marker, which was followed by yet another hill.  Even when we came up on the end and I could see the finish line just around the bend, I didn't care enough to move faster.  Only when it said, ".1 to go" did I finally resolve to finish the race like I finish all races and really push it.  It sucked. I was panting at the finish line, and a volunteer asked if I was okay.  I was freezing and achy and so glad it was over.

My sister came in at about 2:21, and Mom finished with 3:08.     

Overall, I don't know that I would recommend the Haunted Hustle.  Maybe if they hadn't changed the course it would've been better, but the course pretty much sucks.  Other than the bit through the trails, it wasn't particularly scenic.  The food at the end was better, but there was no gatorade to be found.  There also weren't enough timing mats.  There was one at the start, the finish, and midway.  They didn't even give me my midway time with my results.  I also would've like the mile markers to have been better marked.  I saw every mile marker at the mini, but because the Haunted Hustle's mile markers were closer to the ground and off to the side, I had to really keep an eye out for them.

My favorite half is definitely the Mini.  Other favorite races include Lake Monona and Black Earth.