Looking back on 2009 races... (Part I)

As I gear up for my 10th race this year on Saturday, I look back to all the races I ran...

January and February were quiet, I didn't run any races then, though I did run the Fairfax 4 Miler on NYE.

March: I ran my first race of the year, the St. Patrick's Day 8k. It was freezing waiting for the start, and the race route was actually fairly boring, going around DC, but with no sights to see. The worst part? Seeing the finish line, sprinting for it, only to be told to turn left down the block and run another quarter of a mile towards the finish. Everyone I spoke to did the exact same thing, assuming it was a straight line to the finish! None of us stuck around after the finish. Instead, we made our way out to Rosslyn and had a post race breakfast at Cosi.

April: Ran what was my longest distance yet at the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler race. I had been looking forward to it, but was terrified that I wouldn't be able to do it, but ran the whole thing with no issues, and my main goal of not being picked up by the bus, was luckily met. My next goal of finishing in less than 2 hours, also met. We didn't hang out long at the post race party, the Boy had already picked up a banana and a couple of muffins for me, and after we all hung out a bit with the group, we went our separate ways -- we had woken up too early to be in the mood for hanging out.

May: Started the month with the Muddy Buddy race. Despite awful thunderstorms the day and night before, the race day was chilly, but not raining. It was my first (and only!) race that also involved a bike, and it was a blast. I definitely want to sign up for it again next year. The post-race party was a disappointment, as we were promised a "pizza party" but instead we got orange slices. The showers to clean ourselves up were just hoses with no adequate water pressure. But the event itself was fun!

May was a busy month, so a couple of weeks later I ran the Riverfront Revolution 10k at the National Harbor. It was a horrible race, and I'll definitely won't be doing it again. First, the t-shirts didn't even have the race name on it, it was the worst race t-shirts I've seen yet -- it was a promo shirt with a big restaurant name in the back (no mention anywhere of it being for a race). Then the race was badly organized. It started 20 minutes late. They had us running down the "boardwalk" at the start, which was about 10 feet wide, and since it wasn't a wave start, runners got stuck behind walkers, because there was just no room to move. After that, we got stuck in a muddy road with puddles, where you can see eventually will be a trail, but now it's just an area for construction trucks, and it was even narrower than the boardwalk.

They had no control who was running the 5k, or who was running the 10k, so a lot of the 10k people turned around on the 5k turnaround point which registered them for a great time on the 10k. To make matters worse, they didn't register my time. Actually, I was in a group of 7 people, all of us finishing at different times, and none of our times were registered. We also didn't run through any of the streets in National Harbor itself, but instead went to a back road with no view, no buildings, no trees, and parts of it were undeveloped so we had to run through gravel (most people at that time chose to walk, since it wasn't the safest place to run if you wanted to keep an un-sprained ankle).

That same weekend, I had signed up for the Pacers Running Festival -- there was a half marathon and a 5k, and I signed up for the 5k. I was tired from the day before, and this was one of the hottest days we had had so far, and I was still not acclimatized to the warmer weather. It was also the first race that the Boy didn't sign up for, but ran with me anyway. I finished with my best 5k time to that date, if only because the first half was downhill, so I was going much faster than usual.

Not much of a race party afterward, but it was fun watching the half-marathoners finishing it, and witnessing my first (and only) account of someone who shit themselves during the race. This woman wearing a bright orange running skirt had a brown stain on the back of her skirt, and liquid crap running down her legs. We had to look away not to hurl.