LOHI 5k 2009
A race in my ‘hood, the first annual LOHI 5k. JM and I arrived at the race early to pick up our “bibs” which were actually similar to bumper stickers, I had “0007″ which is not nearly as cool as “007″ but what can you do, pretty sure that I have never had a race number that was preceded with zeroes.
I had run this course on Monday, just to check it out, since it’s only a mile from my house. What I noticed after the completion of that run and what was confirmed after our warmup was the course was short, way short, .3 miles short to be exact. It’s hard to get motivated to race when you know the course is short, so you have to mentally check yourself and go out and race. I knew that a course W was not in the cards, because for some reason I decided to invite Justin and I was already second guessing myself for this decision as I’m not sure if I will be able to take home any other W’s this year, last year I had two.
The start of the race was bizarre. The Denver North High School drum line was playing and all of a sudden the Race Director yells “Gooooo!” I’m pretty sure that zero percent of the runners were ready, no one was on the line, Justin had his back turned to the start and I even waited a second wondering if he was joking, he was not. So I fumbled with my watch, hit the start button and took off. The “funny” thing was I saw 5-7 other runners a block or two from the start, with a serious “WTF” expression on their face; they hit their watch and joined the pack.
I let Justin take off and settled behind five other runners. The course was really challenging, essentially it’s all downhill then back up hill to the finish. At the first mile I was in 5th place, but pretty confident that I could come in second. I started moving up and at the 1.5 mile point, I took second and started pulling away.
I ran at about a 95% effort, finished with 5:55 pace, thus a good workout. The website says that they are going to post results of the first 100 runners. Not exactly sure how they are going to do this, since a timing company was not hired, perhaps they were just using a stopwatch?
Anyway, Justin picked up a trophy for the victory and I was sullen. We then did a 4.5 mile cool down, finished with about 10 miles for the day.
The race has potential, tons of police, but they made a few gaffes in their first year. I’m honestly not sure how the course can be that short? Worst case scenario, you get your 1985 Chevy Impala out there and use the odometer and my guess is you’re within ~3% of a 5k. Most serious runners know that if a course starts and finishes in the same spot and runners do not run around a cone or perform a 180 degree turn at some point on the course, that the course is short. Oh well, hopefully they fix the course next year, because otherwise it is a great course, albeit challenging.
The other “funny” thing was I had two guys come up to me, asking me my time; they then said something about how surprised they were about how fast they ran. I then told them the course was short, the guy responds “Ahhh, I figured it was too good to be true!”
That’s pretty poor, I have to say. From reading JM’s report it seems they dropped some cash to get the police working the course, then to have a stopwatch with 100 lap split as timing and come up 10% short – makes you wonder. And then they go to the trouble and expense of getting a trophy for the winner. Hmm, let’s not bother with the important stuff, but cover the rest of the bases. Hope they get it figured out for next year – looks like a good cause: “education”?
Anyway, congrats on a strong run and your silver finish.
Yeah, I almost wonder if they spent so much money on the police that they didn’t have any money left over for other expenses, thus they were not able to hire a timing company and do some of the little things needed for race management.
An accurate course and timing carry about 80% of the weight, in terms of whether or not the race is a success. The others are just intangibles, the t-shirt, food, etc.
I emailed the RD before this race because I could tell by looking at the map on the site that it was short. This was more than a month before the race. He was very friendly in response, but essentially said yes, its short, they know its short, but its for a good cause and a fun run and he hoped I would still run. I wrote back and told him people looking for PRs would not want to run this and they really should do everything they could do get a real 5k course. He again politely said thanks and maybe we’ll do that next year.
I did not run it.
I just can’t accept knowingly putting on a short race without letting people know in advance.
Even before $100 Garmins, there is no excuse for having a short (or long) course.
I ran my hometown course a few years ago. The finish was set up in front of the long drive up to the high school, so it could be easily moved forward or back probably 400 feet.
But the race was off by around 300 feet, invalidating my potentially sweet time. It was just sheer laziness in that case.
In the case above, it sounds like it was a matter of police and route planning.