Will Run for Wine!

So we were always trying to get my mom to try new foods or eat healthier version of bad foods.  We always knew when she would not like something because she would say “it was interesting” .  This race was interesting.

First off I had a hell of a couple of days prior to the race with my son moving from Texas to Seattle WA, you know Mom Worry.  So as the race day came I was pretty much already tired.  But I don’t miss races if I can help it.  This was an evening race, which I had only done one previous evening run but it was during a much cooler season.  By the time race time came around it was pretty hot and humid.

When  it comes to races I try not to focus any of the negatives about it but this one was a little hard to ignore.  The race was poorly organized from packet pickup where a lot of participants were told they had to buy a parking pass for $10.00 as there would be no additional parking.  This was not true there was plenty of parking close for free.

The there was no one out there directing people where to go so you had two different groups of people lining up on opposite sides of the start line.  Then and this was the bad decision on the race organizers part they opted to take race day sign up.  Very bad idea as that line was easily over an hour ling.  This resulted in the race being delayed.  This also caused more issues after the race.

The race itself was pretty normal as it was at Liberty Station and this is a very common route for many San Diego Races.  Once the race finally got going I was off and running, but to be honest this turned out to be a struggle for me as I was both mentally and physically exhausted and I am honest I just did not try. The heat that was coming form the sidewalks was pretty brutal as it had been cooking all day.   But I finished and it was a good learning lesson for me, no  evening races in the summer.

One really cool thing is I met some amazing woman at this race, Laura, Teresa and Sally.  As those of us that run these races by ourself’s, I am good at finding those other races that don’t mind taking a pic of me.  I met these ladies and low and behold they were fellow weight watchers and I had met and attended their leaders meeting while traveling.  It was so much fun meeting them and they represented Temecula with pizzaz!

This is where the race organizers did not think ahead.  The wine garden and the goodies that were promoted on the race website were based on how many had signed up, not how many were going to sign up race day.  The wine garden was way to small for how many people were trying to cram into it.  There really was not enough security to keep people from walking out of the wine garden with their glass of wine. Being only 5ft tall, these type of crowds are not my cup of tea and no glass of wine is worth getting trampled. So after a long couple of days and a very hot run I headed home.

 

Now I have done races where I feel as though they could have been better organized, I mean we all think we can do it better, you know the I would have, they should have.  But this one was actually validated as a bad race as a few days later I received an apology letter from Active, they were acknowledging that there were many mistakes made in this race and was offered free entry in another Wine Run.  I give lots of kudos to Active for taking this step, sometimes its much easier to ignore the elephant in the room hoping that you forget or you drank enough wine to now care.