Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Am I allowed to have a race pet peeve?

I decided to map the directions to packet pick up for tomorrow's race while at work today, and thought that I should go ahead and review the instructions as well. I was pleased at the details presented in the packet....its a local race and those don't always yield the best instructions to runners. But this group impressed me with their level of detail. And if you know me...I am a detail girl so its kind of a big deal if your organization impresses me :) The race is a 10K..because a 5K turkey trot wasn't enough of a challenge right? ;) For you non-running, non-metric folks that is a total of 6.2 miles. I have run other 10K races...as well as longer and shorter distances. And I have to say that I am bothered by the lack of course support for this race. I got to the part of the packet where they discuss prohibitions. No strollers. OK. No dogs. OK. No headphones. Ummmm. I usually ignore this when I see it show up in a race packet, because I run with music. I have to. I don't always use the music, but there are times when I need it. And I will not go without. I am usually respectful of this request though and only wear one earbud so that I can still hear the course officials....or remove one when I come upon a course official. Their reasoning, of course, was just that....course officials cannot be heard well with headphones on. Ok. So they intend to have lots of course officials that have important info to tell me. Yeah right. Now on to the pet peeve. The packet goes on to further state that they will have course officials at every mile marker calling out times (that's the folks with stopwatches who let you know how long it is taking you to run the race). Great. But there is only ONE water stop along the whole course.....just before the halfway mark....at mile 3. Seriously?!?!?! You are going to have all these people with stopwatches telling me my time at every mile....but no one to hand me a dixie cup of aqua until mile 3??? Maybe I am spoiled. I am used to courses having water about every 1.5-2 miles. Having no water support until halfway and then not again until the end just seems absurd. I will, of course, now carry my own water. But it seems that if you are going to put that level of detail into your race organization....you could have thought about the runner support component. Okay now that I have ranted....here's my question: I have only been a self declared "real runner" for about a year and a half....do I have a right to be picky? Has my quest for 100 competitive miles this year made me a race snob? And if I am going to be a snob, don't I have the right to know these kinds of details up front BEFORE I give you my hard earned cash to come and run in your race? Thoughts I will likely ponder during the race tomorrow.

No comments:

Post a Comment