Is it worth racing in terrible weather?

Running "well" is not only relatively to you, but also to everyone else. What if you won the race, but your time was not close to your PR? Would you say you ran well or not? Part of the "sport" of running is being able to compete in less than ideal conditions. So, Yes, it's worth showing up. The accomplishment is part of the reward.

i would normally agree but all races this year are fake and he signed up on a whim. i wouldn't waste a hard HM effort on this.

if you designed your whole schedule/are cycling around a real event, skipping it would be a waste. that doesn't seem to be the case here.

flvmmox wrote:

i would normally agree but all races this year are fake and he signed up on a whim.

How are races this year fake?

It Depends on the Situation:

If the main goal is just to PR, and the weather makes that impossible, then yes its really not worth it.

Championship Race/ Goal is to win, then go for it, time is out the window at that point anyway.

Since this is not a marathon you should be able to recover from it quickly and always run another one in a month, so if you do decide to race just race to win or place high and don't think about time. Any racing experience will always help you get that PR.

It's never worth it to race in terrible weather.

I skipped all of the rainy cross country meets and DON'T regret it!

raceDNS wrote:

Got myself into good shape (relatively speaking) - so jumped into a half that is on this weekend. Had planned to go for a PR (sub 1:30 or as close as possible).

However weather is looking awful. 25 mph winds and 5 mm rain during the hour of the race. The course is 4 laps of an exposed field so no shelter.

Is it worth me turning up for the race? I doubt I’ll be able to run well in those conditions. Thoughts?

Some of my best races and biggest PRs have come in terrible weather. Give it a shot and see what happens.

There are a couple of ways to approach this.

a.) If you are up for it you can go for a really good placing, Des Linden stye.

b) You can just have fun in nasty weather, knowing that warm clothes are in the car.

c) Or stay at home and safe your energy for a better day to get a new PR.

I think all possibilities are good ones.

raceDNS wrote:

Got myself into good shape (relatively speaking) - so jumped into a half that is on this weekend. Had planned to go for a PR (sub 1:30 or as close as possible).

However weather is looking awful. 25 mph winds and 5 mm rain during the hour of the race. The course is 4 laps of an exposed field so no shelter.

Is it worth me turning up for the race? I doubt I’ll be able to run well in those conditions. Thoughts?

When I'm peaking for a marathon if a time is the goal then I may consider changing a race if the weather totally sucks and there is another option. Since that race takes months to get back from. If its a race more focused on place I go for it. My marathon PR came on a rainy day with a small headwind, more like 5-10 mph and only on about half the course, not 25mph like yours. I would at least start and see how it goes.

Hardloper wrote:

flvmmox wrote:

i would normally agree but all races this year are fake and he signed up on a whim.

How are races this year fake?

Not speaking for the poster, but the few 'races' I've participated in this year were either virtual or went off in 5 - 10 person waves over the course of 20 plus minutes. As Elaine said, ..

Lol. I forgot about wave starts. The races I've done were so small they didn't or barely needed waves. But as long as the course and timing system are legitimate I don't think it's fake.

You got my reasonings right. Between virtual races and solo track tt's, I've raced 15+ times this year. But I don't believe there is a such thing as "racing to win" in this environment.

Virtual/anything timed via GPS - obviously bull

Wave Starts - The time is legitimate, the standings are not. If you end up with the fastest time of the day, and some other guy in a different wave was 4 seconds behind you, there's no saying who would have won if you were next to each other in the last 200m.

Other reasonings that I have that are more on the personal opinion side:

Turnout - A lot of people who normally would race are not racing. Whether it be because they stopped training or because they're too scared to show up to an in-person event.

Dumb Courses - From what I've seen, permits have been extremely hard to deal with, resulting in race organizers making do with what they can get... OP's 4 lap half marathon in an open field isn't the worst I've heard... My friend ran an ultramarathon on a 1.5 mile loop.

So from my perspective, if you cannot race to win, the only thing to race for is time. So if I were the OP I'd skip or show up and treat it as a long run.

I wouldn't sign up in the first place for a race around this time of year in the US unless it was in So California, Arizona, Florida, or south Texas. It would also have to have a history of good weather. Case in point. The Seattle marathon. Beautiful course but they hold it on the last weekend of November when Seattle usually has cool/cold weather along with wind and rain. No thanks. If I'm going to expend a lot of time, energy, and money into travelling to an event I want to make sure I have a good possibility of achieving my goals.

Thanks for all your responses.

A couple of clarifications - I’m in the UK, and I’m also a female. I don’t think I can race to win (locally would need around 1:20-1:25 to be first female) though could potentially come quite high in the field based on my usual performance...

I guess I can just go and see how it goes, and adjust my expectations on time (maybe shoot for sub 1:35).

I don’t run well in the wind, and as a couple of people have mentioned, it’ll be socially distanced starts so won’t have a group to work with.

There isn't enough information to answer your question.

First, how bad is the weather? Everyone has a different opinion of what is bad. For me, hot and humid is good for a short race but bad for a long race. A few degrees above freezing is good for a race as long as the wind is minimal. Others would say that is too cold. From what you indicated, a PR might not be possible but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the experience.

Second, what are your other options? Is there another race in the next two weeks? Is there good odds that the weather will be better or could it be colder and snowing?

Yecch.

Just get one of these:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSMVCLSwzcCQainc8bBZ4btds0GF1mFWSu5Aw&usqp=CAU

You will be fine. I don't mean the hotdog, I mean the hat. Then you can pretend it isn't raining, problem one solved. You might need some kind of windbreaker. Make sure to dress warmly! Good luck.

my philosophy on this is that it's a hobby I do for fun. If the weather is such that I don't want to go, then I probably won't have fun and it's fine to skip. The race fee is a sunk cost, irrelevant.