- Mini waves: HATE them. I don't know, but for some reason they just make the race feel less magical. After doing the 5K and 10K, I was so groggy the morning of the half, so I wound up arriving about 15 minutes late to the bus stop (more on buses later). That meager 15 minutes put me to the pre-race area late, which meant that they had closed my corral and the one behind mine by the time I made the walk over to the corrals. I had to fall back from D to the dreaded F corral. Lots of pushing and shoving in that corral. Mini waves were a nightmare. I wound up doing a lot of weaving to get around runners who were a much slower pace than I was. I didn't hit my stride until around mile 4, which is much later than I'm used to. Mostly this was my fault, though, for not arriving to the bus on time.