Nike Budapest Half Marathon comments

Race Day Budapest

Got up and had my American-style breakfast (cereal with milk and oj), got dressed, and headed out taking the 4/6 to Oktogon and then the M1 to the Szechenyi Furdo stop. People don’t seem to ever wear shorts in Budapest. As soon as I walked out of my apartment door a man said something to me in Hungarian while looking disapprovingly at me. Still wondering what he might have said...

The day before I went to the Szechenyi Thermal Baths to both take in the baths and also pick up my race packet. This also served as a test run so I would know where to go and how to get there when I needed to return the next morning for the race. Packet pickup started out a little confusing as they had a tent set up outside that looked like packet pickup but they didn’t have my name and sent me to another tent, who sent me to the correct location inside the bath.

So back to race day. I wandered around to get oriented and found all the usual things you find at a big race in the States, vendors and lines! Vendors for products I’ve never heard of and lines for the Mobile WCs! Nike had an entire store set up.

Once I was satisfied that I’d seen it all I started to do some warming up. I noticed mostly men doing warm ups. Serious stuff like high kicks and side stepping. And then they announced that the warm up was coming. I had no idea what was in store.

A high energy cardio dance man lead the crowd in a robust routine to high octane music. I just stood on the perifery and wondered why they were wearing themselves out before the race started!

The mobil WC que was terribly slow.

Then it was time to line up. I headed to the back of the pack where my start group would be. They announced on their website that there would be pacers leading different times as far back as 2:15, so I lined up behind them. My previous half marathon pr had been a 2:40 in Lincoln, NE back in May. I was aware that they were promoting a cut-off time of 2:30 but thought I could get close enough to make it. Vicki and Ryan Phillips had helped me come up with the right pacing time to make this goal.

The gun went off. We slowly made our way to the start line. This was another chip timed race (we actually had to leave a 1,000 HUF deposit) I didn’t cross the start line until about 10 minutes after the 10 a.m. start time.

So we were off. It was clear pretty early that I was at the back of the pack. In fact, the website and race packet info stressed that if you suffered an injury or were caught up to by the bus you would have to get on it. So I looked over my shoulder and there it was, strolling along behind us right from the start! It was a sickening sort of feeling coupled with some I can do this attitude! Look for the photo I took over my shoulder of the bus!

I was having a great time to start. Snapping some photos of the amazing sights all filled with runners. Taking it all in. They weren’t a very green race, by the way. Notice the shots of the water stop. They used plastic cups. It was breezy. There was a crazy rattle of plastic cups being blown across the road (and many likely straight into the Danube).

And then the pictures sorta stop cuz it was getting to be hard work! They didn’t show a kilometer marker until km 3, and using my pacing chart I was well ahead of time, so I said it’s ok to pull back a little. I stayed on time for a good hour until my right IT band started to tighten and I just started getting tired. But I kept pushing. And then there was still the darn bus right on my tail.

I commented about the bus to a fellow runner. Turns out he was a local (who had put on 25 kilos and hadn’t trained for this year, he said). But he said don’t worry about the bus. You can run behind the bus, even. And then around the next bend a race official on a bike had pulled over, he jumped into a group of runners, including me, and with a red permanent marker x’d my bib and several others, but far from everyone. He didn’t speak English so I was very confused.

I caught up to my local friend, who was just a few steps ahead when this happened (and he didn’t get x’d). And he said, don’t worry about it (again!), just keep running! Then pretty soon we came to the relay transition and he was talking with a course official on a bike. He translated for me that we had x amount of time to cross the finish, so we should be fine.

Then a kilo or two later another official on a bike (who did speak english) said I had four minutes to make it to the next kilometer or I was out. I asked where the marker was and he made it sound like it was two miles ahead. But I made it, they didn’t stop me, so I kept running.

But I kept the fire going despite the bus and despite the pain in my IT.

About kilometer 18 they were on us again with the bus, this time they were serious enough that they started to pull ahead of us and open the roads. A bunch of people (no, not just me) rebelled and kept going, running on the sidewalks, waiting for stop lights and traffic, which further slowed us down.

Ultimately, I don’t think they played fair. I started where they asked me to start, at the back of the pack. But it seems the time cut offs were by the gun time, not the chip time. Don’t ask me to run with integrity and be a good sport and then cheat me like that. If I had known I should have started up front with the gazelles, then maybe I wouldn’t have had such problems.

Anyhow, by the time I got to the finish I was running with one other gal. The route was open to car and then only pedestrian traffic as we re-entered the park area where we started. I got to the finishing chute and a guy was closing it and wouldn’t let me in. So, I ran beside the gate and stopped my watch when I “crossed” the line.

Then I had to beg for my medal. I was starting to hyperventilate from the stress induced by this scenario at this point, but got it together. Got my medal. The end.

If you are a runner from the John Bingham school of Penguins I would not recommend the Nike Budapest Half Marathon. (But I WOULD recommend the baths!)