Keeping track: Meet Me Downtown 5K
I ran the "Meet Me Downtown" 5k for the third time last night, and boy has it gotten BIG. Each year has seen a crazy increase in turnout, but man, last night was PACKED. Funnily enough, it didn't mean that the course itself was too crowded, the way that the Race for the Cure always is, but just that pre and post race activities were a mass of sweaty, happy, tired people. About 1,400 people pre-registered, and who knows how many showed up to register and run that night. Add family members and cheerers to that, and man, you've got a crowded downtown Tucson.
Besides fighting and elbowing people aside to get to the water truck, the thing that annoyed me about so many people running was that at the finish line there was a literal line of people jockeying to get their tags taken off and counted. SAR races aren't generally chip-timed, which keeps registration costs down, but means that the timing isn't super accurate. Instead, you just tear off the strip on the bottom of your race number with your info on it, and volunteers keep them in order. But when you've got a mass of people all in line to get their tags taken and only one or two volunteers there can be quite a back-up. So there were a bunch of guys jockeying to get ahead of me in line, even though I had passed them before the finish line. :\ Boo.
I was sick on Wednesday night/Thursday, so I wasn't sure if I would even run this one. But I did end up running the whole time, with walks through the water stations and that's it. I ended up at 31:58 by my glance at the clock. The official time will probably be much later, because of the delay at the end. That's a little slower than I would usually like to run a 5k, but considering the heat and my stomach queasiness, I think it was alright. (It was 98 degrees F, according to the race director.)
So that was my night last night. Also, we saw X Men: First Class, which wasn't as bad as I had expected but still very silly.
Vicki is running a full marathon in San Diego today - good luck dude! That's definitely something I want to do in the future, but ... not now!
And now for something completely different! Ben with a teeny-tiny puppy.
(I've decided to use my webshots account for now as far as photos go. They've improved their UI greatly, so it's not nearly as obnoxious to use as it once was. It may not be my long-term solution, but it'll work for now.)
Besides fighting and elbowing people aside to get to the water truck, the thing that annoyed me about so many people running was that at the finish line there was a literal line of people jockeying to get their tags taken off and counted. SAR races aren't generally chip-timed, which keeps registration costs down, but means that the timing isn't super accurate. Instead, you just tear off the strip on the bottom of your race number with your info on it, and volunteers keep them in order. But when you've got a mass of people all in line to get their tags taken and only one or two volunteers there can be quite a back-up. So there were a bunch of guys jockeying to get ahead of me in line, even though I had passed them before the finish line. :\ Boo.
I was sick on Wednesday night/Thursday, so I wasn't sure if I would even run this one. But I did end up running the whole time, with walks through the water stations and that's it. I ended up at 31:58 by my glance at the clock. The official time will probably be much later, because of the delay at the end. That's a little slower than I would usually like to run a 5k, but considering the heat and my stomach queasiness, I think it was alright. (It was 98 degrees F, according to the race director.)
So that was my night last night. Also, we saw X Men: First Class, which wasn't as bad as I had expected but still very silly.
Vicki is running a full marathon in San Diego today - good luck dude! That's definitely something I want to do in the future, but ... not now!
And now for something completely different! Ben with a teeny-tiny puppy.
(I've decided to use my webshots account for now as far as photos go. They've improved their UI greatly, so it's not nearly as obnoxious to use as it once was. It may not be my long-term solution, but it'll work for now.)