On Monday, one of my running friends said, "Hey, we should run the
St Charles Bridge on Saturday!" There is a race series here where you can run the 3 local bridges that span the Mississippi River. Awesome? I think so! Sadly, I will be out of town for the other 2. Fortunately, I was here today and I ran the 10k. They had a 5k as well, but since Saturday is usually our long run day, we figured we may as well do the long run. So, the 10k it was!
5 of us signed up and none of us knew where it was!! My marvelous friend Kelly braved the unknown and went out to pick up race packets and scout out the area on Friday. Since this is a point to point race (again!!) we had to figure out where to park and where the shuttles would be. We drove to the finish and parked. The potty line was short, but the bus line was long. And not well organized. 5k runners were bussed to a different starting point than the 10k, but there didn't seem to be different buses. When we asked, we were told we had to wait in the same line. 10 minutes later we found out there were different buses, and different lines, and we found ours and got to our starting point.
The race began 20 minutes late. Probably due to their stupid bus confusion. So the sun was well up by 8:35, when we finally took off. We had timing chips, but evidently they did not want to move equipment to the top of the levee, so the gun time was the start time. Grrrr. I'd have tried to be closer to the front, had I known that!! Since I didn't know that, I meandered till I got to the starting line and then started running.
The race was good. The first 3 miles were on the levee and it was a nice trail. There were 405 folks doing the 10k, so it wasn't too crowded. It was really nice for me because I could run my own pace. The 2 faster ladies were in front of me, and the 2 slower ones behind and I was all by myself most of the time. It was great. I ran where I felt comfortable and did my own thing and I liked it.
I was not really pleased with the race officials. They had the 5k start 3 miles into our race, and they started the 1,000 5k walkers and runners 20 minutes into our run. Yep, I now had to navigate my way through all the 5k walkers and slow runners. So no more free and clear running! It did keep things interesting. It was like playing tetris. You had to look for the spot, judge the speed of the people moving and leap through the opening. It worked surprisingly well, and there was only once that the person I wanted to pass moved left when I expected them to stay straight. It was still annoying to have to run through this mass of humanity.
The bridge on ramp was a little intimidating. And once you got on, you saw the mile marker that said you were on mile 4, and then up, up, up! It wasn't so much that it was big. It was, but the length if the incline was so long! I buckled down and went for it. Through 500 walkers, up the bridge, dodging kids and chatting women. 3/4 of the way there, my lungs said they were done, but my legs said they couldn't stop, so we kept going. I was a wee bit concerned I might puke as we reached the pinnacle, but thank goodness, it was all downhill from there! It was a mile up the bridge (did you catch that?! A MILE running uphill.), and another mile down. Wheeee!
Honestly, both the up and down went a lot better than I'd expected. After the down, there was still a mile left, and there was one more hill. Ug. I owned it, I ran it and I sprinted the finish. I was 3 minute faster than last week's race, with a 1:02:14 for 6.24 miles. I was happy with it.
And then I learned I wasn't getting a medal. I know, I'm about to whine, but I'm mad. They handed out medals to the first 1000 finishers and apparently I just missed one. I'd be okay with that, but they lumped 10k and 5k people together. The 5k time as I passed the line was 43 minutes. So a person running the 5k and doing 14 minute miles was getting a medal and not me?! Really?!! A 14 minute miles is getting a medal, and I ran twice as far doing 10 minute miles and I get squat?! I'm really unhappy about that.
I met up with my friends, we got food, we sat and recovered. I have awesome running friends!
This is the bridge, from the parking lot before the race. Scary, no?
The 10k runners, lining up. We were towards the back because we figured it didn't matter. A little grumpy that it did.
Running the levee!
The start of the 5k runners heading for the bridge. I know, terrible quality photos! But this is the only camera I can carry while running 6 miles!
Here I am, nearing the halfway mark. Its hot!
The race brochure said we'd run by plantations, but I expected something more grand.
Yeah, our course was to turn here and run down the grassy side of the levee to get to the road. Super.
Uh oh. Tackling the bridge. Which, I must say looked a LOT bigger when I was running it!
So fun to cross the water. As my children would scream, "I'm on top of the world!"
Almost to the top. Legs don't fail me now!
Ooooh, barges!
The last downhill towards the finish! Almost done!
I don't know if you can see the guy in yellow there, but he ran in a gas-mask and weight vest. He did a bunch of Burpees (push ups, followed by leaping to his feet and jumping, then back down for another push up), right before he crossed the finish line. I don't know what he was doing it for, but I was impressed.
Me and my unhappy face, realizing, no medal for me.
At the after party, they had these guys in striped pants and orange shirts working clean up detail. Yep, you guessed it, they were prisoners! As my friend said, Only in New Orleans would they have prisoners working at a family event where children are running around. I have to say, only in New Orleans will you get Jambalaya after your race!
Race results.... I'm not positive.... They put papers up with your info, but the crowd was pretty thick, and I didn't want to stand there forever. I took a picture with my crummy camera and the picture is so bad, I can't even find my name on it. As I recall, I was finisher 220something. 221, 224, something like that. They listed 405 people as finishing. Their time was around 30 seconds more, because the went by gun time. The web page has no info on finishing or anything, so I guess that's all I get.
Bottom line, I had a fun run, but was not impressed with the way the race was run, and I'm still overly grumpy about no medal. Would I do it again.... yes!
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A brief follow up. I was annoyed enough about the issues in the race that I emailed the coordinator. She responded promptly with the following email, and I am now delighted and fulfilled!
"Thank you very much for participating in this year's United Way
Bridge run. We appreciate your donation. I am too extremely upset with
how some things were handle today. All of your concerns will be
addressed and i am hoping that people have a better
experience next year. Please send me your mailing address and I will
get a medal to you early next week. Also, if you are interested in
participating next year I would like to offer you a free entry to next
year's race. Again thank you for coming out and
we hope you will come again. I'm very sorry. Please let me know if
there is anything else I can do for you.
Thank you
Tamara"
