A 6.5 mile 10K

Well well well.

In my fairly short running career the one thing I have learned is that every race teaches me something about my self.  Today I learned that while I'm about a million times better at going with the flow than I used to be, I'm not perfect at it by a long stretch.

So today I ran a10K put on by this fairly new production company -- last year was their first race and was a 5K/10K with 700 participants. This year they added a Half Marathon and 800 people. I didn't run it last year but I heard it went well however it seems like it was very difficult for this group to double in size in one year.  It was very disorganized at the start -- there were only 7 porta potties (in their defense, there were some permanent potties as this was at a park, but the one nearest the start was closed and the rest were a bit away from the start), the race started late, the trail couldn't handle this number of people and the 10K turn around wasn't well marked at all.

There are plenty of people who do justice to the disorganization and frustration.  From the active.com  reviews, plenty of people had much worse experiences than I did -- running a half when they intended to run a 10K and running a 10K when they intended to run a 5K.

I, like a bunch of people, missed the 10K turn around.  Actually I saw the sign but it didn't say turn around for what -- and I thought as I was passing it that it was probably for the 10K but in race mode I'm a follower, not a thinker.  There were plenty of spots where they had 3 volunteers so it wasn't like they couldn't have had someone there telling the 10K'ers to turn around.  There were just so many people on a very narrow path it made it all the more confusing.  But I figured it out fairly soon (considering what I've read in those reviews) and then even helped others as I went back passed the turn around.  But it totally messed with me.  I just could not let it go...and spent the rest of the race one minute being totally grumpy about the whole thing and then reminding myself it really wasn't a huge deal and that at least I was out running and who cares about time and then grump grump grump.  Pathetic.

This was only my 3rd 10K and I've only run one 5K and one Half.  Clearly I need to start running more races so the stupid stuff doesn't take me down.