sandam1
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2016
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Next up was the Monster Scramble 10K - Sunday, October 15
This race is actually run through the cemetery where my stepfather is buried. Throughout my childhood, he was the runner in the family. My mom ran with him - and was actually the better/faster runner - but she only got into running because Evan ran. Now, over 30 years after his death, it meant a lot to me to run this race in his memory.
This race wasn’t on my original schedule, but since I had a 5 mile run on the calendar, it was an easy substitute. The plan was to be conservative and run it at an easy pace.
Race day was cold and windy, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for me. The 10K was a double-loop of the 5K course. The entry was pretty small and most people were doing the 5K so I kind of expected to be running alone by the end of the race. What I didn’t expect was them to start pulling the directional signs (remember it was in a cemetery so the roads and course was super twisty-turny). I tried to stay on course as long as I could and then headed to the finish line to collect my medal (I thought that it was cute and I wanted to make sure that I got one) before heading back out to finish the mileage by my Garmin.
And now my thoughts:
This race is actually run through the cemetery where my stepfather is buried. Throughout my childhood, he was the runner in the family. My mom ran with him - and was actually the better/faster runner - but she only got into running because Evan ran. Now, over 30 years after his death, it meant a lot to me to run this race in his memory.
This race wasn’t on my original schedule, but since I had a 5 mile run on the calendar, it was an easy substitute. The plan was to be conservative and run it at an easy pace.
Race day was cold and windy, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for me. The 10K was a double-loop of the 5K course. The entry was pretty small and most people were doing the 5K so I kind of expected to be running alone by the end of the race. What I didn’t expect was them to start pulling the directional signs (remember it was in a cemetery so the roads and course was super twisty-turny). I tried to stay on course as long as I could and then headed to the finish line to collect my medal (I thought that it was cute and I wanted to make sure that I got one) before heading back out to finish the mileage by my Garmin.
And now my thoughts:
- Yes, I was slightly frustrated by what happened at the end of the race. It shouldn’t have happened. When I went to get my medal, I talked to the “race director” who was apologetic, but she was a representative of the charity running the race and didn’t “get it.” Afterward I talked to the timing officials who were absolutely horrified.
- If I had been running this race as anything other than a training run, I might have been more upset.
- This was two races in a row where I felt pretty disrespected at the back of the pack. That being said, I tried to handle both situations with grace. However, I was surprised by how irritated Chris was with the race directors as he is usually pretty chill about most things. He reiterated that this wasn’t acceptable and that it shouldn’t happen. That did make me feel validated.