Hello Lovelies!
I hope that all of you have been doing well! Things have been incredibly busy but hopefully this will provide some much needed entertainment for all!
So me and my partner woke up at 5:30 in the morning for this race and it was snowing! :-D It never snows here, and it was absolutely beautiful!!! She had never driven in the snow before so I took the wheel and drove me, her, and our roommate to our location.
I am borrowing a bit from the letter that I wrote to the organizers of the race, leaving out the location and names. I will reiterate that this was the most disorganized race I've ran, but I am still glad that I got to have an excuse to go run in the pretty snow @midnightsun ;-)
1) Having the 5k runners start the race before the 10 mile runners was easily one of the biggest mistakes that was made that morning. Nothing feels worse than to be a beginning runner, move at a 12-15 pr , to then be passed up by a swarm of runners that are in better shape all around you. This may have been a simple miscommunication, but the order of who starts running needs to be so that the more experience runners are ahead and the less experienced start off 10 minutes of so after the long distance runners.
2) Having the routes for the different races CLEARLY MARKED OUT. This was easily one of my biggest complaints. There were no mile markers, no color coded signs indicating which route was for which group, etc. This could have been easily resolved with someone or a group of volunteers spending at most an hour making posters showing which way was the way to go. There were so many instances of people getting lost or the routes mixed up. Had I not seen and recognized my wife, she would have attempted running the full 10 miles and not the 5k she started doing, injuring herself in the process.
3) Not having the roads fully blocked off from passing by cars. I have felt unsafe after awhile with seeing ALL of the cars passing us by while we were running. I would suggest that if you're unable to secure those roads for the time needed for the run, that you hold the race on the running path in its entirety.
4) The length of the 10 mile. I recognize that to a degree that the weather had some part in this, but there should have been a contingency plan in place for the weather. People paid for a 10 mile race, not an unclear 7 mile nor an unmarked 10 mile+ race. It should have been made clear to the race participants that the race had to be shortened last minute due to natural causes.
5) The post race concessions was poorly set up. It was nice to have the things that we did, but someone could have spent 10-15 minutes better setting up those tables so that people could better serve themselves, instead having all the coffee/bananas and food shoved in a corner.
So yea, this was a huge, huge mess, and hopefully they will be able to fix this in the near future. I ran another race with my partner and roommate the next weekend and it was full of PUPPIES!!! It was a Dog 5k, so hundreds of people with their dogs, it was an awesome time! Much better organized as well :-)
So my favorite apps @homeworkblog, @luizapradonu @rambo , include Runkeeper and LoseIt! Run Keeper is great because it has both GPS enabled and stop watch modes that allow me to track my miles, and has dozens of workouts on it as well :-)
And the lose it app has been crucial in my fitness goals because it easily allows me to track what im eating, as well the calories, the protein, carbs, fat, and has hundreds of restaurants databased with their foods, and they allow you to store recipes and the serving sizes and calories based off of the ingredients you use! These 2 combined are helping me get closer and closer to becoming the woman that I know that I want to be. Thanks again lovelies, and I look forward to hearing from you all soon. And remember, no matter who you are or what you strive to be, don't let anyone get you down or belittle you for those dreams :-*
@Rambo , @lyxzen , @Missy , @midnightsun @Bloghomework, @beyla, @nwalmn @prongs
