It's popularity grows each year and yesterday's race was the largest women's half marathon in history, with over 10,000 applicants. The rain most definitely kept many ladies home but, the true diehards were out in great numbers!
The race has always been held in the spring, and in it's earlier days, it was run in March, and it also included a full marathon, in addition to the half-marathon, run/walk. As bad luck would have it, many of those races were cold, cloudy, dreary days. The earlier races also had age restraints that forced many of the younger runners to find "partners," over the age of 40 if they wanted to gain entry. That rule has been axed and it should come as no surprise that the popularity of this event continues to skyrocket.
You have to begin to wonder though, what's going through the heads of the race organizers after yesterday's race. This race has been plagued with nothing but bad luck weather wise since it's inception six years ago.
The organizers moved the race into April in order to avoid the month of March's "lion" weather reputation. Last year, that "worked' and they DID avoid March's "lion." What they didn't expect was to have Augusts "dragon" breathe fire at the participants by throwing the hottest temperatures of 2009 at them. The organizers, fearing a repeat of the debacle of the Chicago marathon the year before, canceled the full marathon race outright due to the heat, and took the clock off the half-marathon runners and walkers and labeled the race a "fun run." They pulled participants off the course after the three hour time limit they imposed. As I sweat my ass off just watching the "race," I couldn't help but feel sorry for all the women who trained for the full marathon, some coming from great distances, have the rug pulled out from under them when they arrived at the park. I empathized with their disappointment. The full marathon has been permanently discontinued.
One year later, the race had the misfortune of being held in the worst weather on a Sunday this young spring! I couldn't believe how hard it rained, yet the women were determined to not let the bad weather get in the way of a great time!
At Fleet Feet Mahwah, we had scores of women who were scheduled to run the race, come in and nervously, anticipating the weather, buy gear to allow them to run with the least amount of discomfort from the elements. They recalled last years heat bath and loathed the thought of the deluge that was to come but, they went at it just the same!
As a spectator, I was proud of all the girl power I saw. This is a wonderful event for women and I praise them and congratulate them for their effort and success!
Ladies, as my late father would say,"stand up and take a bow!"
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