My wife ran the Semper Five and left the extra miles up to me. 😄
I did the race on a spur decision. I picked up the bib from another runner who needed to transfer. That's a great benefit of many of the Marine Corps races. They offer deferrals and transfers within certain windows of time. This was going to be a tight schedule because I needed to drive down on Saturday (9 hour drive), followed by a 6:40 race start, and then a 9 hour drive back home. I wouldn't recommend that tight of a race weekend, but I had to be back to work Monday for a 13 hour day. So it had to play out that way.
The race is unique. It starts with running the Semper Five, which is 5 miles. It includes "hospital hill" which is a challenging hill based more upon length than outright ascent. I ran a race called the Mountain Goat weeks beforehand and that is a hilly race by far. So hospital hill, while challenging, wasn't really a factor for me. The twist on this race is that runners must maintain at least a 9 minute mile pace throughout the 5 miles to get to the start of the Historic Half. For some this was easy. For others this was much tighter window. I ran the Semper Five in 41:15. Then the runners do a 180 and head right out onto the 13.1 mile main course.
So at this point all the regular runners for the half had already started and were 20 minuted ahead of me and the other Devil Dog runners. After a couple miles or so I started running into the slower runners from the half. The grouping got more and more as I made my way into the BOP and slower MOP runners. The Devil Dog had about 500 runners whereas the half had over 5,000. So it quickly became hard to stick to a solid pace because there were people everywhere to run around. It was actually quite tiring because of speeding up to go around people, veering around small groups, and slowing when I couldn't get through. I'm not complaining, just stating that it burnt more energy than typical. I hit hospital hill the second time with about 2 mile left in this 18.1 mile combo. That hill did make me work hard this time around. I was ready to be done. Soon enough I was at the finish with a 2:02:00 half marathon. That isn't a fast time, but I was satisfied given the 5 mile lead-in to this half.
Overall, it was a great race. The Marines always do a great job. I'll try to be back next year. But this time with extra time off from work so I don't have to slog it back 9 hours after a long race. The medals were wicked cool. The Blue Mile is very moving (blue mile is where servicemen and women who have died are honored. Their pictures line that section of the course and voluneteers, many family members, hold American flags throughout the entire section.)
The bling is phenomenal. The shirt is cool, and you get three medals for the Demper Five, Historic Half, and of course completing the Devil Dog Double.
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