Good Friday 10 Miler Race Report

I hadn't ran the Good Friday Road Race in Burlington before and I really didn't know what to expect, all I knew was that it was a small local race and I really didn't have much more info than that. I was emailed a hand drawn map of the race course which I thought was so last century but again I knew it was a small local race. I am not very familiar with Burlington so the map was no help to me what so ever and they had no elevation map, can you say "going into this blindly!" Probably not a good thing!

The Kids 1K race started at 9:00am, the 5K started at 9:30am and the 10 Miler started at 9:40am. I stayed as long as possible inside the school to keep warm so I ended up running to the start line just a minute before the start time. When I was going to the start I was all confused....they had us starting up the hill before the start line. See all of us up that hill:
Here I come holding my throw away sweater running downhill towards the start line, just seemed a bit odd to me!

Throwing my sweater at my husband, not really a throw away sweater is it!

There I am finally hitting the start line:

There were alot of people with bunny ears on and face paint on to resemble bunnies and then there was this guy who even had a basket of eggs, ofcourse my daughter was happy to take some of those chocolates off his hands!

Now yes I was emailed a hand drawn map of the course, did I really look at it? Not really! Maybe I should have. At the half way mark I find myself running through the finish line and thinking WTF????? I still have 5 more miles to go. YUP this was a double looped course. SERIOUSLY? OMG there is nothing worse than a double looped course, okay maybe NOT KNOWING its a double looped course is worse. Wow what a big tease that is and the course was actually a bit boring so I had no interest in running the same roads again, but I had to. Also there was a big hill before the half mile mark and also a water station which I really could not understand why I wanted water right when I start running and then there was no water station until around the 3 mile mark. I was not enjoying this course! After realizing I have to run the course twice I decided I needed a pick me up. So I grabbed the GU I had brought along just in case. It was the Jet Blackberry which I had not yet tried.

Big mistake. It literally sat in my stomach for the rest of the race. I have had other flavours of GU before and this had never happened. Not sure if it was the flavour that just did not sit well with me. I won't be buying that flavour again.

Now this race also had a terrible frontal wind that really just made you drop your pace. The first time around when I hit the frontal wind I had nobody infront of me but the second time (remember double looped course) I had an older tall gentleman that I tried to hide behind to block the wind but it didn't help much because it was just so windy. I felt like I was literally pushing against the wind just to keep my legs moving. It was a very hard run.

But I finally made it to the finish. Here I come:

And there comes my daughter to help me to the finish!

I finished hand in hand with my daughter:

That is a smile of just so glad this race was over.

I crossed the finish line and I am handed a bottle of water and NO MEDAL. WHAT NO MEDAL? I'm sorry but I have never done a race that I was not given a medal. I know most medal are just a crappy piece of metal but honestly I like to be given a crappy piece of metal for all my hard work. Even my husband was like "What no medal?" All weekend we commented "What no medal?" I am so confused! The Kids 1K had a medal and my daughter who is the sweetest thing ever said, "Mommy I can share my medal with you!" I love her!

Here are my stats:
Official Time: 1:29:42
Gender Rank: 46 out of 163 (the males really did well on this race)
Category Rank: 15 out of 29 (wow my category is good)

So I was shy a minute of a PR but honestly I am totally fine with that. This was my first race of the year here in Canada, it was cold, it was very windy, it was a double looped course, I was not a happy camper running this course. Would I run this race again? Probably NOT!