Sunday, January 30, 2011

Brazen Coyote Hills 5k

Because we love Brazen Racing so much, Mary Sue and I signed up for the Coyote Hills 5k. This race sold out and we had the luxury of shuttle buses to get us to the start finish line from the overflow parking lots. Lets just say, we contemplated riding the shuttle all morning because it was so much warmer on the bus!! We had plenty of time to go through the usual "what were we thinking?" and I told Mary Sue I would hold it against her if the day went bad since she picked the race, and than I was reminded that I talked her into 13.1 miles... I kept my mouth shut after that.

It seemed like we waited forever in the cold wind to start. 1 minute after the gun went off we crossed the start line (this would prove to be a problem later). There were so many people and we had a lot of walkers to navigate through. Another huge frustration of mine, if you are walking, start in the back! We hopped up on the grass along the paved path because people were walking 2-3 wide and we literally just could not get past people. Eventually we had to move back down and just deal with. I had a guy running at my pace with his dog on a retractable leash! Really, I decided to keep my mouth shut this early in the race. We navigated across the boardwalk, which was awesome and so pretty. At this point I had more room to pass people that I needed to pass and had time to enjoy the scenery.

Less than a mile into the race we hit single track and came to a stop and than a walk. "Well this sucks!" I said out loud, oops I guess biting my tongue didn't last that long. Some of you know that I have an issue with my heart rate and blood pressure when I came to screeching halt, it results in nearly passing out. Luckily, I have yet to actually pass out, but I came pretty close a few weeks ago. Needless to say, the abrupt stop had me panic a little bit. Once we got through that I was able to get back to a nice pace. I will say, there were clearly lots of newbies out of there with no race or trail etiquette. On an uphill portion, two women decided to walk and they were joking around, as I tried to pass them the one girl shoved her other friend and I knocked into her as I passed "excuse me!" I managed in my most annoyed voice, to which they started speaking to each other in another language. And then there was the couple who was running and holding hands, passed me and then pulled right in front of me and slowed to walk! Really? It's totally cute that you are holding hands and all but I nearly ran into you jerks. Don't even get me started on the poor etiquette at the aid station, I was tempted to through my cup of water at the girl standing in the path next to the trash.

Did I mention the course was long? We were told in advance that the 5k was actually 3.5 so I was mentally prepared for it and didn't seem to have a problem with the extra distance, Mary Sue's gps came back with 3.65 miles.

Even though I have listed a lot of complaints here, it was a great and beautiful race. As usual, Brazen put on a great event, I can't hold it against them if their participants are boneheads.

Some photos to share from the day.
Start/Finish Line
crossing the boardwalk

you can almost see me in this shot


one of the many kids that I played leapfrog with

This is the single track where we were forced to walk




I came in 16/55 for my age group, thanks to all of the walkers who made that number look good! Official time 41:45 for somewhere between 3.5 - 3.65 miles.

2 comments:

  1. At least it was dry out! :-) Great job on top 1/3 of your AG!!!!

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  2. Awesome job! It looks like it was a pretty run.

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