Race Report: Picnic Island #2

This race went much better than I could have ever anticipated; however, it did not start off great.  Ben and I left the house at 5 pm to head over to Picnic Island, thinking that we would have plenty of time to get there for the 6:45 race start.  But, there was a TON of traffic.  We didn't land up getting to the park until 6:15 - ahhh!!

There was plenty of parking available, but not too close to where race registration was located.  We had to run to get our race numbers and while Ben can pee in the woods, I discovered the line for the ladies room was too long to make it before start.  I recalled seeing a restroom at the front of the park that was open, so I decided to make a run for it at 6:24, but it was over a mile round trip.  But, there was no way that I was going to be able to make it through the race with all the water I drank.

There wasn't anyone at the front bathroom so it was very quick and I ran back to meet up with Ben and spray down with bug spray before the start.  We jogged most of the race course and it was much more than a mile by the time we got to the start line.  We met up with our friends Vera and Joe and had approximately three minutes to spare before the start of the race.  Whew!

The water levels were really low for this race, so it made it a little easier than Picnic Island #1 because you didn't have to slosh through the water as much.  Unfortunately, there are also a lot of rocks in the water that were now on the shore.  Which I got caught on and fell in the first 1/2 mile or so.  SUPER embarrassing.

The remaining of the race was pretty uneventful.  I did loose my Sweaty-Band in the cargo net, but it's my own fault for wearing it to this particular race.  I will say that knowing the race course is a plus for Picnic Island.  Here are the splits from my watch:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	35:45.6	3.71	9:38
1	8:35.2	1.00	8:35
2	9:49.7	1.00	9:50
3	9:22.6	1.00	9:23
4	7:58.2	0.71	11:13

Overall, 7/58 age group, 32/298 females, 180/717 overall.  This was my best finish at at Picnic Island ever.  It was a little bit of a rushed experience at the start, but it was also helpful that the tide was low and there was plenty of cloud cover.

Here is photo of Vera and myself with our Top 50 finisher glasses:

Next and final Picnic Island will be Friday, July 13th!