16 June - 10pm
Today was the last day of school - I need to go back as I didn't completely check out. I left school (legally) at noon and caught an Uber to the bus station and got there at 12:30. Bought a ticket to Monterrey departing at 1:35. Before I go on I need to say I could have left Torreon this evening and landed in Mexico City at 8:30 (I think) and then it's a 45 minute bus to Toluca. Despite all my travels in Mexico and Central America, Mexico City just flat out intimidates me - I will do anything to avoid traveling through there. What makes more sense? 8 hours of travel from when I left school till checking into my hotel so that I can fly straight to Toluca or getting there in 4 hours? You can decide. I'll land (hopefully) in Toluca at 8:30 and go straight to packet pick up.
The intriguing thing about this race is that it is at 8,700 feet elevation. Since I have my 50k 6 days later this is going to be a slow, relaxing, oxygen deprived fun run. Just hope I drag my sorry ass out of bed early enough to catch my flight.
17 June
I arrived in Toluca and went straight to my hotel - I had to wait 30 minutes to check in so I had breakfast next door (complimentary) so it was good. I then walked to the start of the race to make sure I could get there (and to know how much time I needed). It was only 2km away and easy to get to. I then walked another km or so to packet pickup - or so I was thinking. I was at the correct address on the correct street at the correctly named building and yeah, it was locked up tight. I walked around for a couple of minutes and I had nothing. I was back at the correct address and now there was 3 of us perplexed and then we saw someone who had come from packet pickup walk by and he directed us to the rear of the building, off the next street running parallel. Packet pickup was then uneventful, but it was pretty lame to not even have a sign at the front - whatever, I had my packet.
18 June
I slept like a baby and woke up at 4:30, dozed till 5. I left at 5:50 and arrived in typical Roger fashion to damn early. It was freaking cold (upper 40's) and I was pissed that I didn't bring a throw away shirt. The race started on time and I stayed true to my plan to run at my all day pace - surprisingly my all day pace was much faster than I expected. Discounting the first km as always - km 2 through km 11 were run at a 6:05 pace (9:47 per mile) and then the course turned around (more or less an out and back) and the wheels fell off the bus. My next 3 km, were 6:40, 6:56 & 7:45. What the hell - I felt so good and then so bad. When I uploaded my run I found out why - it's ever so gradual but the first half drops 100 meters and yeah, you got it, the 2nd half climbs a 100 meters. Normally not a huge thing but at 8,700 feet it is. To make matters worse, there were 11 overpasses/underpasses that we had to go up and over or down and under. Think Monterrey but worse. That was 11 one way so it's actually times 2 (I counted on the way back so I may be off by 1 or 2) but you get the point - it sucked. The worst part though was the mental agony of not knowing what went wrong - I went into this race thinking under 7 minutes/km would be fine. It felt so good for the first half I assumed it would be the same - silly me. I ended up with a 6:49 pace. All in all it was a good race, but zero crowd support - not that I run for crowd support but all the same it helps - and having run Coahuila 21k last weekend I can't help but compare. Since I went to the race by myself I didn't hang around, and walked back towards my hotel. Stopped for breakfast (Erin Thompson you would be proud) and I had a freaking huge plate of enchiladas in some awesome green sauce and beans. Life is good.
I won't be back but I'll never forget this one.
My mantra throughout the race was, "run if you can, walk if you can't, crawl if you must". This is also the first 1/2 that has given a race shirt out that says finisher on it - that played mind games with me also as I was in my sufferfest the second half. The back of the shirt has #soyfinisher (I am a finisher) - I was never going to quit but temptation was there.
Toluca is a nice city that would be great to live in :)
next week - Garmin Coahuila 50k - I may be crawling.
Today was the last day of school - I need to go back as I didn't completely check out. I left school (legally) at noon and caught an Uber to the bus station and got there at 12:30. Bought a ticket to Monterrey departing at 1:35. Before I go on I need to say I could have left Torreon this evening and landed in Mexico City at 8:30 (I think) and then it's a 45 minute bus to Toluca. Despite all my travels in Mexico and Central America, Mexico City just flat out intimidates me - I will do anything to avoid traveling through there. What makes more sense? 8 hours of travel from when I left school till checking into my hotel so that I can fly straight to Toluca or getting there in 4 hours? You can decide. I'll land (hopefully) in Toluca at 8:30 and go straight to packet pick up.
The intriguing thing about this race is that it is at 8,700 feet elevation. Since I have my 50k 6 days later this is going to be a slow, relaxing, oxygen deprived fun run. Just hope I drag my sorry ass out of bed early enough to catch my flight.
17 June
I arrived in Toluca and went straight to my hotel - I had to wait 30 minutes to check in so I had breakfast next door (complimentary) so it was good. I then walked to the start of the race to make sure I could get there (and to know how much time I needed). It was only 2km away and easy to get to. I then walked another km or so to packet pickup - or so I was thinking. I was at the correct address on the correct street at the correctly named building and yeah, it was locked up tight. I walked around for a couple of minutes and I had nothing. I was back at the correct address and now there was 3 of us perplexed and then we saw someone who had come from packet pickup walk by and he directed us to the rear of the building, off the next street running parallel. Packet pickup was then uneventful, but it was pretty lame to not even have a sign at the front - whatever, I had my packet.
18 June
I slept like a baby and woke up at 4:30, dozed till 5. I left at 5:50 and arrived in typical Roger fashion to damn early. It was freaking cold (upper 40's) and I was pissed that I didn't bring a throw away shirt. The race started on time and I stayed true to my plan to run at my all day pace - surprisingly my all day pace was much faster than I expected. Discounting the first km as always - km 2 through km 11 were run at a 6:05 pace (9:47 per mile) and then the course turned around (more or less an out and back) and the wheels fell off the bus. My next 3 km, were 6:40, 6:56 & 7:45. What the hell - I felt so good and then so bad. When I uploaded my run I found out why - it's ever so gradual but the first half drops 100 meters and yeah, you got it, the 2nd half climbs a 100 meters. Normally not a huge thing but at 8,700 feet it is. To make matters worse, there were 11 overpasses/underpasses that we had to go up and over or down and under. Think Monterrey but worse. That was 11 one way so it's actually times 2 (I counted on the way back so I may be off by 1 or 2) but you get the point - it sucked. The worst part though was the mental agony of not knowing what went wrong - I went into this race thinking under 7 minutes/km would be fine. It felt so good for the first half I assumed it would be the same - silly me. I ended up with a 6:49 pace. All in all it was a good race, but zero crowd support - not that I run for crowd support but all the same it helps - and having run Coahuila 21k last weekend I can't help but compare. Since I went to the race by myself I didn't hang around, and walked back towards my hotel. Stopped for breakfast (Erin Thompson you would be proud) and I had a freaking huge plate of enchiladas in some awesome green sauce and beans. Life is good.
I won't be back but I'll never forget this one.
My mantra throughout the race was, "run if you can, walk if you can't, crawl if you must". This is also the first 1/2 that has given a race shirt out that says finisher on it - that played mind games with me also as I was in my sufferfest the second half. The back of the shirt has #soyfinisher (I am a finisher) - I was never going to quit but temptation was there.
Toluca is a nice city that would be great to live in :)
next week - Garmin Coahuila 50k - I may be crawling.
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