Worst Race Ever

No, I'm not talking about my performance but the actual race.

How can you start a race without any race officials? I'm jumping the gun, let me backtrack.

This was the third year for this particular race which will remain nameless to protect the innocent, but it occurs before a parade(Cinco De Mayo).

The course is laid out to use part of the parade(Cinco de Mayo) route which means runners needed to be shuttled to the start after parking at the finish. Normally races use school buses to shuttle runners, so they can get more bang for their buck. I should have known something wasn't right when runners were being shuttled in 10-person vans and there was only two vans!

Since there were more than 20 runners waiting I drove to the start with the intentions of running back to the car after the race(am I that stupid? who wants to run three miles after a 10k?)

I was happy with my decision to drive, so I could take care of any last minute changes to my race plan. Do I need to wear a shirt, it's really getting warm (11:30 start time for the race).

I didn't see any fluid stations on the course so I'd better take water. I was finally ready to get running and the start time was fast approaching.

I'll go run another warm up quarter and be ready for the gun to go off.

Hey, it's 11:45 and no one is telling us to get ready, what's the deal? Someone mentions that the parade (Cinco de Mayo) will be starting at 12:15, so we'd better get this race going. There are more runners waiting on the two vans to get to the start line, but we need to start.

A group of slower runners decide to just run and not wait for the official start. No problem, we should be starting any minute.....

Another ten minutes passes and we're still waiting for race officials to start the race.

Okay this will just be a $25(same day registration fee) training run for me and I take off with a few more runners that were fed up.

I don't know about you but there is a difference in me running a race and just a training run.

I'm not sure if there was ever an official start but upon getting to the finish line the race director was surrounded by several angry runners. Unfortunately, I had to run back via a different routebecause of the parade (Cinco de Mayo) and get my car, so I can only use this post to vent.

I'm glad I waited a day to write this post, now that I'm calmer I can look back and laugh about that F%^KIN race.

Happy Cinco de Mayo