Shocked, but not Surprised

Does that make sense? Can you be shocked, but at the same time not surprised? I'm still sorting out all of my feelings and trying not to be dramatic. I just went to register for my half marathon that is next weekend, and there it is in big, red letters: POSTPONED.

No additional information is available. It says there is more information on the race organizers website, but there is not. It's simply removed from the schedule, as if it were never there. I'm shocked. I worked for this for 18 weeks. I ran in rain. I ran in darkness. I ran in cold. I ran in heat. I ran when I didn't want to run. And just like that, it was taken away from me. Being dramatic for just two sentences: it's as if someone has died, someone that was running with me, looking over my shoulder, for the past 5 months. And now I run alone.

So why am I not surprised? Rapid Running, according to Internet searches I had done back in January, has a bad reputation for canceling races. I had two reasons for not registering early to save a few bucks: 1) Could I stay healthy this time? and 2)Was this race really going to run? I logged in monthly to make sure I didn't see a big, red CANCELED. The schedule (which is a mass schedule for every race within about a 3 hour radius) frequently has "canceled" notices. Today, there it was. Even though it didn't say "canceled", it may as well have. I've emailed the producers to see if they can shed any light.

So what now? Now I just go ahead and pick a new training program like I had planned to start after the race. Get back to heavy lifting, some plyos, some sprints. Get lean. And try to take comfort in simply knowing that I could run 13.1 miles pretty fast.