1:02:50
62% female; 87/140
75% age group; 15/20
Course and Elevation Profile.
First impression - there are so many people here! Yes, there were, but most were there for the 5K, there were less than 300 there for the 10K compared to roughly 650 for the 5K. Apparently only the serious runners do the 10K. Serious sunner I am not, I ran backwards and sideways hanging out with the friend that talked me into this race, grooving to my music. I wasn't that concerned with time until we made it to the last kilometer. There had been a woman that refused to let us pass her for the latter half of the race. We would pass, she would pass, we would pass, she would pass. I was wearing my garmin, I knew we were at a very consistant pace. The last K this woman passed us again and picked up pace. I said goodbye to my friend, in pursuit, I passed her with a 1 second lead. And even in chip time I retained my one second lead! Woohoo! Victory.
There was a man who did this during Spin Your Wheels last year. He would pass, I would pass, etc. I lost track of him finally at a water stop. During the last few miles I began chatting with another man and we spoke about this guy in the OU jersey (kind of hard to miss). The man told me he probably sized up my calves.... "He, what??" Apparently real cyclist will look at the calves of the person in front of them, if they deem their calves unworthy in size, they pass. This is why I had to beat this woman. What did she not like about me? Was it my vibrams? My waist size? What? I have to admit I am also guilty of this. During the Tye-Die Tri last fall, there was a woman who passed me, I looked at her calf (for anyone who doesn't know they write your age on your calf during triathlons). She was much older than I. I saw no reason for me to not be able to keep up with her, even though she was obviously in better shape. I stayed on her tail until the last 100 yards and sprinted around her.
Anyway back to the Classic.. Good course, straight mile north, weave through a neighborhood, then three straight miles back to the start. There were a couple of hills in the 5th mile, but nothing too bad, I noticed the downhill in the 5th mile more than anything. (Now that I look at the garmin info I see why.)
Positives:
#1 Parking! Plenty of it! Laugh if you will, but that is a serious issue at a lot of races.
#2 Good Cause! It appears to be a really good school system. There were banners up in the school for a fundraising drive to donate goats to developing nations. That was really nice to see.
#3 The route was pretty straight forward and easy to follow, if you were running alone at the end, getting lost probably wouldn't happen. There was a bit of confusion from some at the start when the 10K and 5K seperated, other than that course was marked well.
#4 Nice shirt!
Complaints
#1 Need bigger water cups, not minis! I get the idea of eco friendly, okay, then give people options, small or big!
#2 Maybe this is typical and I know stuff left at water stops is subject to be lost forever, but I would have thought they'd bring the stuff back to the start to be reclaimed when they load up to head back, not leave it by the side of the road. Especially in a small race with just a few things left behind.
#3 There was a lot of confusion during packet pick up as to which line was for what, I didn't have any problem, but lots of people were trying to figure it out while I was standing in line.
Garmin info, I forgot to start it in the very beginning, then the signal had a few issues, and the two big slow downs in the beginning are when I dropped my phone, then my keys, about the time I lost my license too. Positive #5 good honest people, my license made it back to me :) http://connect.garmin.com/activity/71431353
Race Website: http://deercreekclassic.com/
