I ran a 5k race today and have a couple of interesting stories to tell
The race was MEC Langley’s second race of 2018, the “Trans Canada Trail 5K/10K/Half and Full Marathon.” This race is held mainly on the Trans Canada Trail where it runs along the Fraser River in Fort Langley.
This is the first race I have ever run where it was fully raining, believe it or not. It wasn’t bad at all. I do my regular runs in the rain sometimes. It’s no big deal.
At the start of the race, a group of about 5 runners took off into the distance. A single runner ran just ahead of me slowly pulling away, but they made a wrong turn about 1k into the race. By the time the runner realized it and got back on course, I was right with them again. Once again they pulled slowly away. as we ran Then something very strange happened.
The race is an “out and back.” You run out for 2.5 kms, turn around at an orange pilon, and run 2.5k back. There are also orange pilons marking the course. The runner in front of me decided to just pick a random pilon and turn around! I yelled at them, “that’s not the turnaround,” but they just smiled broadly and kept going. I counted seconds until I reached the actual turnaround, which is clearly marked and has a worker at it to make sure people turn around, and it was about 60 seconds. So this runner shaved about 2 minutes off their time. I have no idea if it was on purpose or not.
So that was strange.
Then, shortly after I turned around a guy still running the other way pointed at me and told his son, who was running with him, “there’s the leader. That’s the guy we have to pass.”
Sure enough, about a half kilometer from the finish, this guy and his son, who looked to be 8-10 years old, slowly passed me. “He’s got a good kick,” the father said proudly.
“He sure does,” I replied. “I’m not the leader, though. There are about 6 runners in front of me.”
He didn’t reply. He just kept running.
As we got closer to the finish line, the boy slowed. He didn’t have such a good kick after all. I was going to easily pass him but decided to slow down and let the kid finish ahead of me. The kid continued to slow down, though, and I had to slow almost to a walk to stay behind him. Another kid got ahead of me as well.
I have to admit, if I had known how much time it would end up costing me I would not have done it. I don’t mind losing positions to a couple of children at all, but now I don’t really know what my time would have been. I easily could have passed the dad, who was right with his son when I first slowed up. Dad’s time was 24:37. So I probably could have done something similar or perhaps even better.
My official time was 24:53.
Oh well, the next race is July 8. I’ll just have to set a better time then. I’m very much looking forward to it. These MEC races are great fun.
vanTopia 