SERIOUSLY STUPID RACE
This was the Wasatch Woman Love Your Body 10k at Thanksgiving Point and they made a HUGE error in the race route for the 10k! There is a time discrepancy and the race results are totally screwed up so I'm going by my own. For the 7.13 miles that I ran my AP was 8:37 which is the fastest 7 miles I've ever run! My fastest mile was 8:15. My husband figured out that my AP for the 10k would have been 53 min 25.4 seconds. PR! That's our best guess and that's with a hill in the last mile that I DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO RUN!!!
I ran this race with 3 of my sister's and they were great! It was fun and everyone had a great time, it's just really frustrating to not know exactly how you did because they messed up the race route.
So, the race started at 8:30am. They started us, we ran over the pads and we ran for 30 seconds and everyone was running really slow. I wondered when we were going to speed up, we turned a corner and then they stopped us. I restarted my garmin and they started us for real. Kurt Bestor fired the starting gun. Wow! We ran over another timing pad (we were wearing time chips on the shoes). This all seemed weird to me.
I had decided I was racing so I took off. I tried to keep my pace around 8:30 and that was pushing it for me. It didn't seem like this was a race with a lot of elite runners. I was in a pack of about 30-50 (I'm not a great estimator) women who pulled away from the slower, bigger pack and stayed there throughout the race. We ran south and then east, up to the frontage road. Turned north on that road and went past the tower and the hotel (I think) and then turned left and down a big, gradual hill.
We headed down (well, down and then up a little) toward the Children's Garden (I think) and ran around down there. I remember going there with my family to see Halloween lights one year and I think I went on a field trip with one of my kids down there once. Anyway, it was really pretty down there.
There was a hill around here somewhere and a girl passed me with a 2010 Boston Qualifier jacket on. I thought "Maybe that will be me someday:)" We ran on a dirt road for a minute that was steep and then steep road and then onto cobble stone sidewalk for a long time, all throughout the gardens. My sister hated that part cause there were so many runners and it was the size of a side walk. I was fine with it cause I was alone there. Closest runner in front of me was 20 yards ahead. We ran a lot of hills in here. There were beautiful waterfalls we ran over bridges. It was cool. We ran up quite a hill to get out of there.
We come out of the gardens and start heading back toward Electric Park. I'm getting close to 5 miles on the garmin. There were no mile markers anywhere. There were adults and signs at every turn up until this point though, I do remember that. I get to mile 5 and decide to try and speed up cause it's the last mile. I see that the runners ahead of me are running back up the hill we came down. Ugh! Seriously? I'm pushing myself so hard and I don't know if I can make it up this hill. As I get closer I see there is a right turn and that some runners are turning. There were two young (12 and 10 maybe) girls there telling 6ker's to turn right and 10ker's to go straight. There was a cute lady in front of me (I just couldn't seem to catch) who started to turn and came back to go straight. I said to these girls as I passed "10k goes straight?" and they said "Yes!" I'm thinking I can't keep up this sprint up this stink'in hill! We run back up to the frontage road and my garmin is saying 6 miles (no I did not check up at 6.2, I should have) and I'm thinking HOW MUCH FARTHER ARE WE GOING? Well, you know how far I ended up going. You can check the map if you want.
Skip to the finish line. I'm asking others what their garmins say and they all had the same problem. I talked to one 10ker who turned right back there where those girls were telling us to go straight and she came in at 6.3. So, I realized we were all supposed to be turning! I checked the map of the race route when I got home and all runners were supposed to turn right and not go up that hill to the frontage road! INCREDIBLE! Why would you not put a big 'ol sign there saying 10K RUNNERS TURN HERE! or ALL RUNNERS TURN HERE! I just can't believe that at such a critical point, there were 2 young girls telling all of us to go the wrong way. PUT A FREAK'IN SIGN THERE WITH ARROWS!
I mean, when they eventually posted the times, mine said I was 18th in my age group but that I ran a 10k in 01:01:24 and my AP was like 9:49. WHAT? I don't know how they're gonna fix this. There were a few of us who went up to this guy in a lap top who wrote down race numbers and AP's and said he would take care of the time discrepancies. That's the best they can do?
The race coordinator apologized at the end. I went up to her and said "So were we supposed to turn right instead of going straight?" and she said "Yes!" and I said, there were two girls there telling us to go straight for the 10k and she said "They were my daughters, I'm so sorry. Go ahead and hit me...I know you wanna hit me" as she offered up her bicep so I hit her. Not hard enough though.
I'm happy that I ran a good race. I felt like I ran as hard as I could and I am so stink'in tired right now! I'm excited to be running faster!
I was so glad to do this with 3 of my awesome sisters! My older sister hadn't run all week cause her daughter just had a baby and she was with her all week. My younger sister has 7 children under the age of 8. Two sons are the oldest and she has 4 yr old triplets and 2 yr old twins (all natural)! She's amazing. My youngest sister just had her 4th child just a few months ago and smoked this 7 mile 10k race!!! You guys are awesome and I love you!!! Thanks for family who came and supported us! Love you!!!
