After my last 10k one of my friends told me to find another 10k and she will run it with me. I warned her that I would take her up on that so she better be serious! She was... and I found one. The Midnight Glow Stick Run. We registered and started making sure we were ready.
Mind you, I am working on talking her into running the half with me in September. She has been training but hasn't quite made the commitment yet... Still working on that. Though now I am not so sure it's a good idea. She is fast! She ran the SL half last year and even though she hates it she has been doing it a lot longer than I have!
The night started innocently enough. We met at about 8:30 knowing we had a half hour drive to get to the starting line. We were told to get there 45 minutes to an hour early so that's what we were planning on. We were too early, there was no need to be there 45 minutes early! But she is good company so that's no big deal.
It was 94' when we met. Ughhh, gonna be a hot one folks! More humid than usual too actually. Not terribly humid to other people but I do live in a so called desert, so humid for us anyway.
We parked and got all glow sticked out. We knew the glow sticks were going to annoy us... and they totally did. Not sure what I was thinking with the necklaces but we looked good anyway. Flashy rings, flashy necklaces, glow sticks. Awesomeness.
The race started and we went... and went, and went, and went. It was an out and back course which I wasn't terribly excited about but I was even less thrilled about when I realized they were turning the 5kers around at about the 2 mile mark... whatever. We ran and soon ran past what you would think would be the half way point for 6.2 miles and kept running. Finally the 4 mile water station and the turn around point! Wait... what? 4 miles? we have to run four miles back? Well that is further than 6.2 miles. And not a little further either!
I think we just kept hoping that they moved the finish up while we were out or maybe there was a different route back that was a little bit shorter? Sara is a sprint to finish kind of gal and she kept thinking it was the end and then it wasn't. At one point I told her she was going to have to slow down because according to the start we had 2 miles left and I didn't have a faster pace in me for TWO MORE MILES. She cut me a break and slowed a little. Mind you, she just slowed to our normal pace from a sprint but that was all I really needed to not keel over.
We were wondering what in the world was going on but there were finally musings here and there so we at least knew we weren't alone in thinking something was off. We started passing all the 5k walkers, and there were a lot of them. It was pretty crowded on the way back (5k walkers!) and were working hard to dodge and pass runners.
Finally we hear cheering and we are in the last little stretch. Aaaaannd, it was over. Where are our shiney sparkly necklaces? What? We have to wait for the awards? Newsflash, unless you know someone getting an award you normally don't stick around for the award ceremony, especially if it's midnight! They were holding our sparkly necklaces hostage so they had an audience. Terrible!
We grabbed our banana, orange slice and five cups of water/gatorade, cooled off and waited. We checked FaceBook, Instagram, uploaded a picture or two of me with a bright red face. Okay, that's done, now we are BORED people. It's 12:15, finally the awards are in full force. Enough people have complained about not getting medals that they started handing them out to the people finishing the half at the finish line. Good enough for us. We went over, grabbed two and left.
Not sure if the 10K finishers were supposed to get the light up medals but whatever. Give us SOMETHING and we left. (We weren't but the apology email said they had enough for the 5&10kers and to go pick one up! So we didn't steal! And now we don't have to go pick one up!)
Phew! Long night, never going to do THAT one again!
Our little slip of paper said we ran 13:47 minut miles. But, that was dividing our time for a 6.2 mile run! Thankfully the online results made the proper adjustment! Kind of proper, my Garmin had the run at 8.31 miles (10:19 min miles) but the results have it at 8.2 miles. Not only that but the follow up email said 8.4! Let's go with the Garmin since they obviously have no idea what they are doing anyway.
We were 29/30 of the women in all groups and 4/5 of women in our age category 35-39.
Lessons:
- Those people with the clip on hat lights were the smart ones. I could have landed on my knees... or face, a couple of times very easily, especially because the first and last maybe .2 were on an uneven gravel road. There were NO lights. (Even though they said they added lights and mile markers this year...)
- The midnight race doesn't start at midnight. It was a balmy 77' at midnight, not so much when the race started at 10:00.
- I am much slower in the evenings/heat/humidity.
- Don't eat three corn dogs for dinner right before you race 6(8) miles. Boo to that.
- People don't much care who is behind them and slower runners/walkers do not stay to the right. Boo to this.
- Sara is faster than me, and more competitive. Apparently when I run I lose my normal competitiveness. Can't we just stop and smell the roses?
- Telling tired runners near the finish line to run faster and hurry up sucks. Tell them they can do it and they are almost there. Not to run faster, I was close to dropping dead. Note taken for future reference.
- Running at night is as boring as the treadmill, maybe worse. You can't see anything! Maybe if it were lit and cooler but this was 8+ miles of borrrrrring.
- Glow sticks around your neck are annoying, arms, not so bad.
Awwwe, Sara is cute.
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