All Dressed Up and No Where to Run

So I awoke up Saturday morning at 4:00 am. to my cell phone's alarm clock. It was another early rise for a half marathon race.  This time the race (the Bearathon), was down in Waco, TX. It starts/ends at the campus of Baylor University. The drive to Waco was uneventful. That is until around 20 miles from Waco I start seeing lightning.  In total, I saw 4 lightning strikes for the rest of the drive.

As I drove through the campus I see the street gutters filled with about 3 to 4 feet wide water. There seems to be a lot of run off and the gutters are barely handling it. Luckily I found a "crossing" that did not get my feet/shoes soaked.

Small gym

I headed into the gym (around 7:00) where packet and timing chip pickup, and registration was being held.  We were told that the race was not cancelled, to continue registering and picking up your timing chips. Another update was given. This time the race was delayed until 9:00, because of lightning strikes. Again we were told to continue as normal (registering and timing chip pick up).

Packet pick up.

 Timing chip pickup line.

We were given our final update aound 8:45. The race was cancelled due to "inclement weather". We were told to turn in our timing chips and to pick up our tech shirt and medal.  It looks like the announcer misspoke about the medals.  After receiving our tech shirts and no medals, some runners inquired further. They were told that there would be no medals handed out. As I and others did not hear a correction announced, I could see why this was confusing to some.

T-shirt pick up line.

 Indoor food and drink station.

As I left the gym I heard a runner count off from 10 done to 0, out loud. I turned towards his direction and see about 6 to 8 individuals cross the starting line.  It looked like they were going to run the course, on their own.  I wish I could have run with them. 

I understand the side of race management. It's not fun for them. Taking care of runners' safety is their priority. This was my first experience in which a race was cancelled due to inclement weather. I can tell you, that for my side, I was very dissapointed. After driving an hour and half, and 90 miles, the last thing I (we) wanted was for the race to be cancelled.

The rain clearing up as I drove home did not help the mood I was in. So now that I know how it feels to show up ready to run with no where to run,  I hope I don't have go through this again. At least not anytime soon.