Today I discovered the Olympic race I signed up for is on Saturday not Sunday (as I thought) … Then I find out it is always on Saturday and I have done it before so should know better … I was just so used to Sunday races (most I have doen so far this year have been on Sunday) … I guess my 600-mile trip tonight and tomorrow will be a bit abreviated and rushed!! (I’m fitting the race intro a 2-week road trip).
Anyway, this is not the first time I have done this: I have missed a few small road races I thought were on Sunday and were on Saturday or I thought were at 9 a.m. but started at 8 a.m. Tell me I am not the only one who does this sometimes !!! -TB
Never done that, but did miss the start of a race completely once - it was a 1/2 Marathon in Vancouver. It was a fairly big race and I had gone off on a warm up jog and some how got my stop watch and real-time watch mixed up. I arrived back at the start area with this sick feeling that something weird was going on as there was no one there and the race had 3,000 people entered. I had missed the start completely by somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Stipped off my warm-ups and took off. It was a chip timed event so at the least I would be getting a time. Within a mile I caught the last placed people at the back of the pack and then started to cut through the field. I felt like a dork hammering along at just under 6:00 min/mile pace past all these people. I had to do a fair amount of bobbing and weaving through the main part of the field, but I kept going. People who knew cheered me on from the sidelines with this strange look on their faces looking like they were asking, what’s wrong?. I just shugged my shoulders and said I missed the start. It was surrealistic. Anyway I kept hammering right to the finish and ended up clocking 1:17. I knew the race organizers and they knew I had missed the start, so they honoured my chip time and I got an age-group award. Nice of them to do that.
I’ll have the occasional dream-slash-nightmare where I’ll wake up like 5 minutes before 7 for an Ironman…all that planning, traveling, training and I can’t wake up in time for the friggin race!
Always set at least 3 alarms for important races—two watches and the hotel clock—and harldly ever need one of them to wake up in time.
But other than that, no, never missed a race, or mis-timed a race. Way too anal about things like that for something like not remembering the date of a race.
Dorkiest thing I have done was I did the Silicon Valley Marathon up in San Jose a couple of years ago on the weekend that you “fall-back” on the watch.
So I wanted to be at least an hour early to the race, turns out I was over 2 hours early because of the time change.
Definately underestimated travel time on the morning of the Marine Corps Marathon, and arrived as the National Anthem was playing…my brother and I are sprinting through the crowd (getting some pretty mean looks…), make our way to the chip station, and make a B-line to the start line…needless to say my marathon ended up being about 29.2 miles. Whoops.
Way back in the early eighties while living in Hollywood Fl, I entered a race that started at 6 o’clock. I thought that was kind of nice because most of the summer races started at 7 and this would make it a little cooler, and give me most of the day at the beach. I got up early and drove to Vero Beach, got there around 5:30 and found nobody there. I checked the flyer and found that it started at 6 PM. So what did I do? I went home, went to the beach for the morning, took a nap at noon and got up at 4, drove back to Vero and ran a PR!
I did that for the Coeur d’Alene half marathon last year: Forgot the time zone was different. But better to be early than late! And I got to see the marathon start.
Was late for a wedding once because I went to the wrong church.
Missed group rides by showing up at the wrong time or location, but never a race.
I’ve missed three races so far this season due to a lung infection so don’t feel bad. Finally over it. It means I’ll only do four out of seven this season.