Well, you can note for the record that a Reston Runner ran the 14th Riga Marathon on Saturday, May 15!
It was, as I hoped, a cool day with a temperature of 44 degrees F. at race start time, that is, noon. The bad news is that it was raining pretty much the whole race, so we saw a variety of clothing styles on the course. Some people were in tights and jackets and a hat, while there were some hardy souls wearing just a singlet and shorts.
I opted for shorts, but a hat, running jacket and gloves, and I was glad I had the jacket with sleeves when the wind picked up to the predicted 11 mph late in the race. And, I found my Cherry Blossom souvenir cotton gloves were great for wiping the water off the face of my watch out on the course.
There were about 160 runners in the marathon (and some larger number in a little 4.5 km satellite run) at the noontime start from the Freedom Monument in the center of Riga. Despite the rain, the pre-race was a lively, noisy scene with a flatbed truck stacked with loudspeakers booming out rock music from one of the local radio stations. I noticed they were playing songs about sunshine, as if to ward away the effects of the downpour. Lots of supporters were on hand to send the runners off. Two buses were parked off to one side for people to change clothes in. Even though we live close by and I pretty much dressed at home, I had a last minute change of heart about vest versus jacket, so I used one of the buses for a quick change - out of the rain. (The bus smelled just like any locker room.)
There was a little scrum at the starting line because the organizers belatedly decided to have a guy note the bib numbers of all the starters. So as we were counting down to about two minutes to start time, he was still writing down numbers as people crowded around him, water streamed off his umbrella, and runners shouted their number until they saw him get it down on paper. No computer chips in this race. On the other hand, you could not complain about the price -- race entry was totally free with all costs covered by a local supermarket chain.
The announcer said "March" precisely at noon, and we were off. It was a good course up through the center of Riga and then out through some residential areas, past the golf course and the shipping port, and around a big lake on the east side of town. The trip around the lake was kind of like Haines Point -- by that time you're out where the houses are few and far between, the runners have spread out, and you just have trees on one side and the lake on the other. The half way point is out there.
I was running with Jerry, a businessman here in Riga who has been training with me for his first marathon. (I told him every story and bit of running lore Al Rider ever told me.) Jerry is younger than me, about 38, and probably could go faster but he wanted to stay together for company. We talked the whole way about everything from business to politics (local and American), and made it a point to say "hello" or "thanks" to all the course monitors and police officers along the way. (They all looked cold and wet.) So, we entertained ourselves enough to make the miles and kilometers go by. We passed a good dozen or so runners after the crowd thinned out, and those little "victories" also spurred us on.
The race was well organized, with a water and Powerade stop every five kilometers, usually just after the big red and white kilometer marker. There was also a person calling out your elapsed time as you ran by. Of course, time was called out in Latvian so it was good we both understand the language. (Probably they could also say it in English, Russian and German, if you asked.) There were lots of police standing along the course to control traffic, others zooming back and forth on motorcycles, and much of the way they had barriers set out give the runners a full lane free of cars and buses. At the start all traffic was off the streets in both directions, but later on they were allowing one way traffic or alternating directions. The only thing we objected to was the big 18-wheelers who were allowed to pass us on the two-lane road near the lake.Darn, but they throw up a lot of water from their wheels in the rain!
Finally, we passed the 40 kilometer mark and could see the stadium lights high against the grey sky. We needed just one last burst of energy to get up over the railroad bridge (steepest climb on the course, gaining about 30 meters in altitude in about 300 meters) and then it was down and turn into the stadium parking lot. We decided to race for the finish line, finding some hidden reserves, and Jerry and I crossed the line side-by-side in 3:56:17. We discovered that while our first half was pretty good, we had slowed considerably in the second half -- splits of 1:53 and 2:03.
The good news was the tall Latvian blonde who put a beribboned medal around our necks and gave us the tee shirt and a goody bag after we crossed the finish line. Jerry noted that she was smart enough not to give us a kiss at that point.