The Army 11.2 Miler?

When I reached mile 9 this morning, I breathed a [heavy] sigh of relief. I was beating my time from three years ago and I didn't have much further to go (or so I thought). Even with minimal training and not much rest, I was pumped about my performance. But, after at least 10 minutes, the finish line was still nowhere in sight. What the hell? Had I messed up and I was really only at mile 8? My knees were really starting to hurt. The most I'd run during training was a 10-K, so this was pushing it. Something was odd. I kept telling myself I was 'almost there,' but 'almost there' was taking forever!

When I finally crossed the finish line and slowed down to a walk, I heard the announcer saying something about 11.2 miles. What? Also, I hadn't crossed any time-verification platform, nor had I seen anyone collecting our race chips. I stopped to ask a [very good-looking] army volunteer if I had heard the announcer correctly. The officer informed me that the course had been re-routed just after the shotgun, meaning the race was no longer official. Er? (Aside: he then offered to take my chip for me, AND offered to help me remove it from my shoe. Remind me again why I didn't take him up on his offer?).

For me, that was an annoyance, but certainly not the end of the world. I'm not a particularly good runner, so I hadn't come out to break any records. But what about all those people who came from other states, or other countries even, for serious competition (not just with themselves, like this Cookie)? There were 20,000 people running this race, and not only was it 1.2 miles longer than it should have been, it wasn't official?? I suspect the city is going to have some irate runners on its hands.

The reason? A 'suspect package' on the race course. Are you fucking kidding me? I'm sorry, but this city is paranoid. Was re-routing the course not being overly cautious? If it was really such an issue, get a bomb squad in there, blow the shit up, and get on with it. But that's just my opinion at the moment...while I'm sitting here feeling a little extra tenderness in my knees. At any rate, I hope the asscorn who left a package under the 14th St. bridge sleeps like shit tonight...

Guess I'll just have to run the Cherry Blossom 10-miler too...