What the Heck Happened at the Davis Moonlight Races?
Apparently, in Davis, a half marathon is only 12.2 miles. Well, maybe if it is the Change of Pace’s Davis Moonlight Half Marathon.
If you ran this race, hopefully you hadn’t been training for a long time for this distance and were just out there for laughs. Otherwise, you might be a little irritated.
Short races, cancelled races, and preventable screw-ups are all pet peeves of mine. However, I do give Change of Pace credit for taking responsibility and trying to make amends (from their letter to participants) :
Saturday night, as you know, the half marathon course was significantly off due to runners being mis-directed at an intersection that what we now feel should have been less confusing and better monitored. The wrong turn omitted runners from heading back to the finish line and completing mile six.
…
While we can’t fix what happened, we can say that this will most definitely not happen again. Along with our deepest, most genuine apology, we would like to offer you compensation towards a future event. We will be sending you a voucher that may be used as a half-off coupon to any of our upcoming events taking place in next 12 months, OR as a $30.00 (75%) discount towards pre-registration to the Moonlight Half Marathon in 2012.
At the very least, maybe some of you got an amazing PR out of the deal!
Complete results are here at the bottom of the page.
I was there for fun with my wife before and after the race but for scalps during. I knew the course as did many of the other half marathoners I spoke with after the race yet we all still missed the turn after the fifth mile. I was so focused on racing I wasn’t even aware I was short on distance until the 12 mile marker (my 11th).
Regardless of the logistically flawed routing, the course was very conducive for a fast race and the weather cooperated. I was very happy with the race despite the missed loop and short distance. My wife and I had a great time before and after as well – totally worth the $45 entry fee. We can’t wait for next year’s race.
1I won an entry to the Davis Moo-nlight Half in another A Change of Pace event–the Natomas Summerfest 10K–which was 6.7M long. None of the mile makers on the course were a mile apart from each other, the distance seemed to be “guesstimated”. My wife ran the 5K at Summerfest and had it at 3.3M.
During Saturday’s half, I was pleased when the first 5 mile markers agreed with my Garmin, then we jumped from 5 to 7. And let me make one thing clear, it wasn’t misleading course markings that sent us the wrong way; it was volunteers pointing us that way. A very preventable mistake.
The event, otherwise, was great. I enjoyed the course and the atmosphere was fantastic. I even really enjoyed the band playing at the finish. Luckily, I was just out for a run and not attempting a PR. I feel bad, however, for people like my friend Mike who trained for his first half marathon but didn’t get to run one.
2I gave up on Change of Pace races long ago and boycott all their events.
3Where can we find the results for the 12.2? I see that the 2010 results are listed again but i don’t see 2011?
42011 Results are here:
5http://www.changeofpace.com/Results/DMLR11/2011_davis_moonlight_results.html
In a related note, I ran the 5k at Davis Moo-nlight. Just before mile 2, the second place runner and I were mis-directed and failed to “turn right.” We realized the mistake and looped back to “run the course,” thus adding 30-40 seconds to our finish time…another mistake that could have been prevented by informed volunteers.
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