Race #11 Overall

Race #8, 13 in 2013

Race Bib

So if you hadn’t figured it out already, I skipped out on Dallas this weekend.  As a matter of fact, that race in Dallas should be wrapping up right about now.  It’s 88 degrees up there already while it’s still 78 here, mainly due to continued cloudiness.  But that’s not why I backed out.  As noted in the previous post, I have decided to push thru some half marathons to continue my challenge, and I need time to train for it.  Honestly, if I could have switched my 10K registration to the Half Marathon in Dallas, I would have done it and probably would have suffered greatly for it but I would have done it.  Alas, that was not permitted, so instead I decided to nix the Dallas trip and save that money for a future half marathon trip.  Luckily I lost very little money on this deal.  The flight was barely $150 and the race was about $45, so less than $200 total.  The hotel and incidentals would have cost me an extra $500-$600 or so and that’s money I could put towards a future trip.  And if I have to go back to Texas again anyway?  Yeah, so the decision was pretty easy then.  Not to mention, I was able to pick up a last minute local race here that ended up being a lot of fun.  The Zoo Zoom.

Course Map

This race seems to be pretty popular.  Over 800 registered for it.  There were many kids and high school students, which worried me at first since I figured the students were all track and field or cross country athletes and I would surely get smoked.  Turns out that there was a pretty fair mixture of people, but yes, it was mainly families with children.

The registration was easy.  There wasn’t a lot of information on their website though, no course map, where to meet up, what to expect.  Packet pickup didn’t offer anything additional, but I also didn’t ask.  I smiled, picked up my bib and tshirt and walked off when the person offered no additional information.  I will say though, these shirts are pretty nice.  I guess I should start taking pictures of the shirts too huh?  I saw a couple of searches concerning race t-shirts and it got me thinking, yes, some people would really like to know what the shirt looks like so that they can perhaps get on next year.  Some shirts are really flimsy.  Most are cotton.  Some are dry-fit.  Some are too big, others are too small.  Most are white.  This one was purple, and it fit great, almost too big but very comfortable.  I just took some pictures.  I’ll see how they came out before posting.  I just took one of the Zombie shirt also.

Race Shirt

There was a half mile fun run for children around some of the zoo exhibits before the actual 5K.  The 5K event started outside of the zoo, went around a field and then came back into the zoo for basically two full circuits (although the paths kind of crossed somewhat).  I was amazed at just how many people there were.  I saw the starting line area back up with loads of people and I had no desire to get in the rush.  I wasn’t really shooting for a new personal best.  I was mainly doing it for fun and was kind of hoping to get some pictures of some zoo animals.  More on that in a minute.  So for now, I just stood around the back.  I try not to be a total douche and just run around all the walkers.  That’s not my intent at all.  I totally respect walkers because for 30-40% of a full run and for 30-40% of recreational, I’m still a walker.  I’ve basically been a walker forever.  I can walk for days.  It’s just recently that I turned that potential energy into faster jogs and brief sprints.  But I’m not very consistent in running and I certainly don’t want to block someone else from getting around me, so I find it safer and more practical to set up near the back somewhere and just wait for my time.

So anyway, I did basically what I did at the Gleaux Run.  I started off walking, to let the crowds thin out slightly, then when a father jogged past while pushing his daughter in a stroller, I decided to follow along and go around some of the back walkers.  This turned out to be perfect really because we only really ran for about 1/3 mile and then we ran into a pretty big bottleneck trying to get back into the zoo.  It was slow.  Slow enough to drop my pace to like a 45min/mile.  But it really didn’t last that long, maybe 30-45 seconds.  But I found it hard to pass which didn’t upset me because I wasn’t trying to pass.  It only upset me on the inside because I feel bad for the people behind me.  I feel like they want to pass and I don’t know if they’d push through the crowd to pass whereas I don’t.  My thought is that if you wanted a record time or wanted to run fast, you should have been in the front to begin with.  🙂  The worst part about it though is that this second bottleneck where we were making our first loop was about the same time as the lead pack was looping back around to  begin their second longer loop.  So I know there was trouble behind me.  I heard people scream get to the left but they never caught up right behind me.  Then we turned to the right for loop 1 while they turned to the left for loop 2.  After that point, I really didn’t see any other problems.

Zoo Entrance

Take that back, I did see a problem.  All of the animals were still sleeping.  I was hoping to see more animals stirring.  I saw several different bird exhibits, and the antelopes were up.  No monkeys the first go around but I saw them just kinda sitting there the second pass.  I never saw the flamingos, or any elephants.  Another person said that they weren’t out yet.  No cats.  BR Zoo has a good cheetah exhibit but I never saw them.  As we were making our second pass, I saw more zookeepers tending to the exhibits and more animals were stirring but the race was all but finished by that point.  I settled for pics from the Club South Runners group.

After the bottlenecks, I did settle in for a bit behind a group of girls who were dressed as flamingos.  They were easy to spot.  They were completely dressed in pink and had flamingo masks on.  It took a while for me to pass them but eventually I did and I guess I didn’t look back because they ended up finishing nearly ten minutes after me.  I did feel like I was in a little groove through miles 1 to 2.  Mile 2 was definitely my fastest.  I also caught up with a girl I saw at the beginning who was dressed up as peacock.  It was a very cute outfit and everyone was taking pictures of it.

Eventually, we came around to the finish.  They had chip timing, but it was only for the finish.  They used a gun start.  So I crossed the finish at around 34:45 or so.  But it took me a good 45 seconds or so to cross the start, and I used my watch to track and time this race.  I ended up finishing at 33:40.  I probably could have finished a lot quicker but I held back in this race and there were some bottlenecks.  But it’s exactly what I wanted.  I wanted fun and this race was fun.  Over 800 registered (which I heard was a new record for this race) and out of that there were times for about 630 of them or so.  I still finished right around the middle of the pack, so it’s still in line with my normal 5K finishes.  I’d definitely do this race again.  If you want fast times, start up front.  Otherwise, bring your family and just have fun, plus you’re supporting a very good zoo and cheetah conservation.

Race: Zoo Zoom 5K

Date: August 24, 2013, 8:15AM

Place: Baton Rouge Zoo

Time: 0:33:40

Charities: Baton Rouge Zoo & Cheetah Conservation