Saturday morning sunlight was greeted with thick fog, and when Paige and I saw the Remax hot air balloon out in front of us, we thought our eyes were playing tricks. The air was cool enough that I wished I hadn’t taken off my sweat pants just yet. But as the Jazzercise ladies warmed up the crowd and we stood in line at the appropriately pink port-a-potties, the sun began to burn through the clouds and we were treated to a gorgeous spring day…here in the middle of February.
There were some really good things about this race, like the goodies for breast cancer survivors, the $450,000 dollars raised and the 12,000+ people who came out in to run or walk early on a Saturday morning. The course, too, was beautiful, roaming through the center of LSU’s campus, pass the Indian Mounds before winding down to the lake and back up to the golf course. Oh and the food. After the race, there was Mexican gumbo, yogurt samples, oranges, turkey sandwiches, jambalaya, and because it’s Louisiana, a beer tent, just in case you were ready for a cold one at 10 am (lots of people were).
Here are some of the not so good things:
No defined start or finish line.
Admittedly not the end of the world since we were running, not racing, but it would have been nice. There was a chute of people at the end, but we weren’t sure where to stop. Was it past the cheerleaders? Was it after they gave us water bottles? Was it all the way back up at the main stage? We had no idea. Similarly, there was no official starting line that I ever saw, so I just started my watch when we started running, but again I have no idea where we were supposed to start from.
No time keepers at miles 1 and 2.
Again, not the end of the world since we weren’t exactly tearing up the course and I know my pace pretty well, but we were told they would be there and then they weren’t…so what gives?
12,000+ Runners and Walkers
I don’t know if you’re counting , but that is a LOT of people. And the beginning of the race was a mess. Paige and I have a deeply embedded aversion to strollers (I could tell so many stories from my time at Disney), so we wanted to make sure that we were well away from them. We walked and walked and walked towards the front of the group, but they were everywhere. I know a lot of people take jogging strollers out to 5ks, and I don’t see any problem with that, but if you’re planning on just taking your kid out for a 3.1 mile walk, get to the back of the bus.
Additionally, there were lots of walkers up towards the front. We probably spent the first 10 minutes bobbing and weaving around people who were out for a Sunday stroll. Again, if I had paid extra for my race to be timed, I would have been pretty upset about this.
There seemed to be plenty of volunteers on hand, I wonder how hard it would be to direct people into corrals, one for serious runners (people racing for time), one for people like Paige and I who were out running but not going to win any awards, and one for people who just wanted to walk. I’m thinking not that hard, but what do I know.
So that’s enough of my complaining, despite those 3 things the race was actually really great. We could not have asked for better weather, the course was nicely shaded, all the volunteers were friendly, lots of runners wore costumes, and I even won a 4 pack of toilet paper. It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning and it raised money for a great cause. Win, win and win.