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Reindeer Run – A Successful Failure
Race# 32 Overall
Here’s a fun race to run, I said. It would be fun running at night, I said. I guess I should have known something was up when I went to get my bib and shirt about two hours before start time just to find out that my bib was already gone. Really? I was watching them pull through the bibs. Were they simply not paying attention? So one lady who seemed sympathetic said that I would get a replacement bib and walked off to supposedly get one reissued to me. The other girls (including the one who searched for the initial bib) didn’t really seem to care, or they just simply had no clue as to what to do with my situation. They just froze until I finally moved to the side and allowed for some more people to check in. Here’s your sign!
Xmas Tree
So I waited for what ended up being about twenty minutes. The original lady walked back and forth a handful of times, glancing my way every now and then, I just assumed she was still working on my bib. Eventually, she stopped walking altogether and just started handing out shirts and never looked my way again. But the other girls looked at me a handful of times then. Were they just expecting me to leave? It was like the entire tent was clueless. Even a lady I work with who was volunteering with check in was completely clueless, “Oh, they better not have lost your bib” before proceeding to go back to playing with the jingle bells and antlers. So then the city Christmas tree was lit (without me present) and the fireworks started going off. At that time, I just gave up and threw my hands up in the air. I walked off, took some video of the fireworks and figured that I wouldn’t even bother running this race. What incompetence.
Fireworks
I ended up meeting up with a friend back by the parking garage, and we walked back to the start line and check in. I walked up figuring that either they would have a replacement bib ready or they would be completely clueless. Well, as you can probably expect, they were totally clueless. So this guy walking by sees my predicament and he proceeds to getting me a replacement bib very expeditiously. But he didn’t take any of my information, simply my name. He didn’t even care about my previously assigned number. So I make the joke, I wonder if the guy who took my bib will run faster than me, maybe I’ll want his time.
We line up at the back of the pack to start the race. I just now that there’s going to be a bottleneck as the streets were not clear (plenty of parked cars on both sides of a fairly narrow street to begin with). We start finally and we’re off. We take things a little slow to avoid the bottlenecks but I can’t say that it was as bad as I expected, perhaps because we started near the very back. We were able to get around a lot of people pretty quick though. The pace was about 10:15ish. Lots of people wearing antlers. Most people wearing the jingle bells. A few people dressed up as reindeer even though they looked like gophers or hedgehogs instead since they were round and had no real antlers sticking up.
Capitol
The state capitol building was lit up green and red for Christmas. Perfect time for a picture. So I take the picture right where the turn is from 4th Street to Spanishtown. That’s when I notice a lady down on the ground and two guys helping her up. First casualty to this night time event. I was curious whether or not there would be any lighting issues with this particular race, especially since a co-worker had mentioned how he fell in it two years prior. Well, as long as the field of runners isn’t too packed and I pay attention, I figure it shouldn’t be… Jesus Christ, I just tripped over whatever it was that lady must have hit…
And I went down hard in slow motion even. I started tumbling and there was nothing I could do about it but brace for the fall. I hear someone scream about the ‘crack’ and once on the ground I think I even saw the ‘crack’. Crack my ass, it was like a mini fault line in the middle of the road. I didn’t even try to get up as I was more worried about other people tripping over it, maybe even falling on top of me. So I yell and point “Watch out for that crack thing!” Meanwhile some poor lady is waiting on me, trying to help me up but I guess I wasn’t in a great hurry. But I realized I needed to get up and at least off the road. She helped me up, I thanked her and immediately felt the pain as I began to hobble towards the sidewalk.
Hey, where is Danielle? She had her earbuds in and was right in front of me but she must have missed me going down. She was gone now. I’ll just say that she tripped me! Haha.
Meanwhile, I look down and all around and notice blood in three areas, both knees and all along my right arm. Ouch, the right arm took the brunt of the fall. It looked pretty bad. But hey, it wasn’t broken or if it was I couldn’t tell. If anything, my left arm felt a little more suspect for a few minutes, but I think it was just in shock. I saw the first lady finally take off in front of me. She must have done the same thing I did, fall, get up, inspect her body, assess her injuries if any, and went back on to running again. So I start to run. Ouch! Wow, can’t really tell but I think I’ve really screwed up my foot somehow. Must have stubbed that big toe good. But how far ahead of me is Danielle? So I took off running again, although at a slower pace.
About half a mile up the road at right past the first water stop, I found her. I hold up my arm to show her my injuries and she thinks I’m wanting to bump arms for encouragement “Yeah, buddy!”. No, no, don’t touch it. See the blood? You should have seen her face then. I think she was more startled than I was when I fell. Haha! I explain to her what happened, not to mention when I caught up to her and stopped running for a moment, I realized that I had really messed up my foot more than initially thought. Now, she did ask if I wanted to head back to the start. But we were almost as far away from the start as we were going to get anyway, plus I’m supposed to be tough right? “Nah, I’m already out here, let’s do this!” Hell, it’s only a 5K, right?
Well, I just hobbled the last two miles of that 5K. Actually, for all the local races that are shorter than a true 5K, this one was a good quarter mile or so longer. How about that! But since I fell in the first mile, it made for a long two miles to the finish. At times it felt better running (albeit awkwardly) but I just did what I could. The pace dropped to about 16:30. Ha! I walk faster than that… when I’m not injured. 😛
The last two miles took us over a few speed bumps and two parking lot access gates and we saw no less than another four people go down although I can’t say any looked as serious as me and the first lady I saw. The rest seemed to shake it off quicker. I was told that some older lady fell on her head and needed an ambulance, but I don’t remember ever seeing her or the ambulance, but god knows where she was in the field. Not to mention, they ran out of water!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… Remember how cold it was in New Orleans earlier in November for the Jazz half marathon? Well, summer came back the first week of December. It was 82 this particular day and it was still 80 not long before the race start time. It was warm, muggy. Supposedly there were people passing out and puking at the finish line. And the event staff had nowhere near enough water. They ran out for a long time before I guess some local business gave them extra water. I guess they were expecting another 35F wintry day and everyone would want hot chocolate. Although they had all week to watch the weather channel and see that it was going to remain in the 70s and 80s the week leading up to this particular event.
And I was bummed at the finish. From such a tragic event where I tried to scrape most of the skin off my right arm and possibly break my toes (actually I fractured two of them but I wasn’t sure about this at the time), I was just sure that I would get to utilize the EMS tent at the finish. I mean, most races have some sort of medical standby and this race did think about having trainers to stretch and massage people prior to and after the race. What do you mean they don’t have an EMS tent? WTH? So now there is no medical, there’s no water… What the hell turns into What the F***!!!
But this is where my second co-worker friend turns up with her true awesomeness. Carrie has got to be the sweetest person ever, and fun as hell. She locates a basic first aid kit. At least it has iodine. She also helps to find water although not until after she cleaned my wounds the best she could with what she did have and wrap it up in the only tiny gauze tape she could find. Event director… terrible job. Worst race ever so far! But Carrie made up for it in the end. I guess I can forgive them. lol
Post race sucked though. Most of the food was gone. There was some super long line for what appeared to simply be a tiny bowl of red beans or jambalaya. Then we walk around the corner for some pizza (now I have a pizza a beer craving), but the place was pretty packed. We run into a few other co-workers and I explain to them how Danielle tripped me so that I wouldn’t beat her this time. Haha. I guess it was best not to stop for pizza and beer. It helped me decide to go on home and properly clean up my arm with alcohol and peroxide and to pull off my sock to find out what damage I had done to not just my big toe but the one next to it as well. LSU Purple! Nearly a week later, I still can’t move right on it. Guess it’s going to take a few weeks for sure.
But it was a success right? Not so much because I finished it. Who cares if I’m stubborn. But it was a success because I wanted to run at least one race in every month of the year this year (to make for last year) and this race did that. I have officially completed a race (minimum 5K) in every month of 2014.
Oh, and as far as times go… the guy who took my bib did end up finishing first in his age bracket. Actually, the bib should have said he was 36 but that would have placed him second in that age bracket, so he must have complained and gotten the director to change that bib to be age 41, which placed him first in that age bracket (but they didn’t change the name). And since they didn’t have any clue who the real Daryl Williams was, I finished second to last in the same age group. I guess the just copied his info and put it for my replacement bib info. Now that there are two of us, age 41, I think that other guy should be disqualified. Haha!!!
Either way, I think I’m done running for the remainder of 2014. See you guys next year. Happy Holidays!!!
Race: Reindeer Run
Date: December 5, 2014, 7pm
Place: Baton Rouge, LA
Time: 46:24
Zoo Zoom 5K
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
Zombie Run NOLA
Race #9 Overall
Start Line
Zombie Run Special Effects
Field Zombies
Colon Cancer 5K
Race #8 Overall
After returning from San Francisco with my toe still intact I felt I could easily handle this race. This was the race I really wanted to do anyway since it had a direct correlation to my late father who spent nearly two years fighting colon cancer. I was hoping to have my aunt with me but some family emergencies kept her from coming up to the city.
The day started off interesting enough though. I didn’t sign up early enough and I couldn’t make to the packet pickups due to work and traffic. I had an hour to get from downtown to Perkins Road and on Thursday I couldn’t even do that thanks to constant construction on every other street in southdowns. Sometimes I really hate Baton Rouge traffic. So I just signed up Saturday morning. I knew I didn’t have the cash as I had forgotten to go by the ATM anyway, so I took my checkbook. Then as I open it up to write a check, I’m reminded that I didn’t replace my checks, so I had no blank checks remaining to use. Wow, I thought to myself. That’s what I get for rushing. But they were able to take credit cards too so I just used it. It’s a sad time where I don’t carry around $30 anymore.
The race was set up fairly well, lots of booths, snacks, water/juice and a band from Angola. Wow, we got our own prison band. They actually were pretty good. But the whole Dept of Corrections van and cops constantly watching them just felt strange.
The starting line wasn’t very pronounced and they had to remind people several times that runners go in front and walkers in back because it seemed they didn’t order a chip start, and only bibs with numbers less than 800 were getting chip finish times. So it was a gun time. It turned out to not be that bad. I probably crossed the start within 5-10 seconds. The finish line was orderly however. It just took a while to get our official finish times although I did notice that I was around 34:04 when I got to the finish.
They had 540 people in the 5K which was pretty impressive for this race. Way to go everybody! There were so many teams also that were raising money for various people. I honestly had no idea you could take the race bib and flip it over and write who you were honoring. No idea. I didn’t realize until I started seeing a few while on the course. I’ve never thought about looking on the back of a bib before. I guess I will from now on.
The run itself was very comfortable for about the first half. Then the sun came out for the second half and it got hot, especially hot for me because I was still recovering from a decent sunburn I got in California. So when the sun came out, I literally began to feel my skin sizzle. Great, I thought. I’m at a colon cancer run getting skin cancer now. What are the odds. Ha! Actually, I’ve been burnt so bad as a kid, I’ll be surprised if I don’t get melanoma sometime in my life. Hopefully God continues to watch over me.
So all in all, a very fun race. The course at Pennington is partially off-road however. But I’m already getting used to it, except we ran it in reverse from the Dietetics race back in March.
Change of plans again. Turns out I’m working over Memorial Day weekend out at the sinkhole, so no Mississippi run that weekend. I’m thinking of making that one up in December with the Pass to Bay run in Pass Christian. I’m also probably not going to do the run in Fort Worth this weekend while in the DFW Metroplex. Wouldn’t be fair on the parental units making them get up so early to drive nearly an hour from our hotel to downtown Fort Worth for a 10K race before the festival even starts. Nevermind it couldn’t be much more convenient and the weather in north Texas for early May couldn’t be more perfect, possible 50s in the morning, mid 70s in the day. That’s unheard of for Dallas in May. I’m not sure when I’ll make up the Texas race yet, but there are many good runs around Houston and perhaps I can find another during a cool month. There is a night beach run in Galveston and on Padre Island, just to keep my options open. I’m also still eyeing Alabama for sometime this year. So potentially five states in one year still isn’t bad. I just don’t know what I’m going to do when everywhere I have left to go is a three hour flight away. Do I just take off a month and travel around the country? I wish!
Race: Get Your Rear In Gear
Date: April 27, 2013, 9AM
Place: Pennington Biomedical Center, Baton Rouge, LA
Time: 0:34:04
Charities: Colon Cancer Coalition
Advocate Cypress 5K
Decorative bib
Race #1 of the 13 in 2013
Race #3 Overall (since November 2012. The first two runs I didn’t blog about because I hadn’t started the blog yet: The Turkey Trot and the Gingerbread Jog. Of those two, the Turkey Trot is the largest race I’ve been in so far and the Gingerbread Jog was somewhat disorganized but a lot of fun.)
So I know it’s a week late, but I ran my first race of 2013 and my third running race overall last weekend. The Advocate Cypress 5K. It coincides with the Louisiana Marathon weekend also. I had several friends run in that. (Maybe next year.) The weekend is loaded with activities, cheer zones, entertainment, expo, you name it. It seems to be put together pretty well.
For now, I handled this fairly easy 5K with a raised bridge over a railroad in the middle of it. I definitely ran for my longest this time, all the way to the top of the bridge before I finally had to walk a bit and then jog down. It was an out and back so coming back across I just walked up and then ran down the other side. After that, it was a slow jog to the finish. I did see one friend at the finish line. This was her first 5K race. Not bad for a first race. She finished about two minutes behind me.
I recorded another personal best, but it wasn’t easy. This run came up quickly after about a month hiatus due to rain before Christmas, a Christmas trip to New York, and then more rain after Christmas until three days before race day. I enjoyed the course though, right thru downtown on fourth street to North Blvd to 19th Street then back.
Finisher’s Medal
I believe there were a lot of first timers at this race. I could hear some conversations while in the run. Most were pairs where one seemed to be coaching a newbie. Most tips sounded informative. Other tips sounded crazy. But it was fun to stick with a group for a bit until either they pulled away from me or fell behind. I’m not sure what running etiquette there is yet. I ended up next to two women in the last mile who were listening to some loud music, I forgot what it was playing but it sounded pretty cheesy. Also, I’m not in the habit of passing people at the end. I usually pace someone who’s running into the finish and I just follow them in, no thought of passing. I mean, if I couldn’t pass you during the first 3 miles, what’s a last tenth of a mile going to accomplish. But the guy and his son he was pushing in front of me jogged for a bit and then decided to take off sprinting to the finish. Well, I felt obligated to follow along. So I kept up with him all the way to the end. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get away from me or to just look good at the end.
This definitely was a fancier race. It had photographers all over and they even handed out finisher medals which from reading other blog stories appear to usually be reserved for marathon and half marathoners and then other select races. I guess this was one of those. So I got my first finisher’s medal. That was pretty awesome in itself.
And now I get set to run some 10K races. The first comes in three weeks with a local favorite, the Mardi Gras Mambo. I’m setting a goal for 90 minutes. If I run my current 5K pace, I should make it in about 75, but I anticipate being slightly slower at times, to make it through the entire 6 mile distance. My goal should simply be to making it to the end.
Race: Advocate Cypress 5K
Date: January 19, 2013, 8AM
Place: Downtown Baton Rouge
Time: 36:54
2013 A New Year
The world did not end, so it’s time to take advantage of a new year and make some pretty bold resolutions with every intent to follow through with them.
After dad died last October, I began thinking about my own life, how to improve on it. It’s easy to say we want to lose weight but it’s not always easy to actually accomplish it. It’s easy to make promises that can’t be kept. Thinking about it now, maybe it’s just that we need to find something that we can enjoy. For me, it appears to be running. Three months ago, I never thought about running. I was thinking maybe do a few 5K walks and cheer myself for just getting out of the apartment to do something new. The first 2012 walk (in November) went about as expected but it was slightly different. It wasn’t in my own backyard. It was in a strange place around total strangers, and I liked it. Then I was intrigued by the fact that some 5K races didn’t restrict you to choosing between walking and running. So in the next race, I tried some running. Much tougher for someone who doesn’t generally run except for around the bases. The 5K seemed to last forever but it eventually ended and I survived. Two weeks later, I ran in a second 5K. It seemed remarkably easier. I ran a lot longer, faster and increased my pace by over 2 minutes.
So I’m feeling incredibly confident now with the 5K, I decided to push forward with my goal to run in a 5K race in every month of the new year. But running twelve races in 2013 didn’t sound complete, so I’ll add a race and make it an ‘even’ 13 in 2013. In addition, the new adventure in running accompanied with the journey to an out-of-state race led me to decide to make it into a 50-State bucket list adventure. The ease of running the 5Ks and the urge to make the 50 state adventure a tad more reasonably challenging, I decided to up it to 10Ks. I can run a 5K anytime, but to count towards my 50-State challenge, it should be a 10K. If for some reason I begin to find it difficult to find reasonable 10Ks that I can attend, perhaps I could settle for 2-5Ks, but for now I’m going for 10K. (I say that because the number of 10Ks readily available and during a time I can possibly travel to some of these locations is far less than the number of 5Ks.) Why not marathons you ask? Does anyone actually believe I could run a marathon? Within 7 hours even? Perhaps in a few years, with some thorough training that helps with my endurance, but I’m eager to start my challenge, so 10Ks it is. 🙂
I guess 2013 will also be the year I start a blog. Perhaps I can use it for this and other travel adventures and… time will tell.
Anyway, for now, I’ve got the site set up with some quick info and my list of races as I sign up or plan for and complete them. I intend to include a map as soon as I decide which I like best and which is easiest to update. I’ll come up with other stuff as I go along.
It’s only Jan 2 and I’ve already signed up for four races this year in the first three months, 1-5K and 3-10Ks, in two states. I intend to look into a third and possibly a fourth this summer. Let’s see if I can start knocking out the south quickly in 2013. Hey, come join me if you like. It’s not like I’m that fast.
500K Across the USA 