To sum up this race... Great cause. Lousy execution.
Registration
Where to start... our group of friends have been wanting to participate in this event for months. The problem was, they couldn't register. The website for registration (active.com) was just terrible. It would freeze, forget your login information, and would force you to fill out the same pages over and over again.
As a result, only 4 of us ended up pre-registering. We easily could have had at least 15. The rest of us 'planned' on registering the day of the event. With the weather as poor as it was, only 4 of us showed up. The problem is, even if all we wanted to do was donate to the event, we weren't able to because of the website.
Parking
Yeah, Seward Park never had great parking. But I didn't think I'd be parking 3/4s of a mile away. Even though I thought I was arriving early, I was pretty much jogging to the starting line.
The Run
Runners were supposed to be given a 10 minute head start ahead of the walkers. Or so I thought. As I was making my way to the starting area (after hearing the announcement), I was passing by quite a few people with the "Furry 5K WALK" bibs. It was difficult to get around them. Especially with their dogs and leashes.
And before I knew it, I had crossed the starting line and the majority of bibs I saw were still the "WALK" bibs. I was still walking at this point since I couldn't get around people easily.
After checking my chip time at Furry5K.com, I had crossed the starting line 3:49 after the initial gun. After speed-walking & jogging around the walkers for the first mile, I finally caught up to the bibs that said "RUN" on them and felt really good during the rest of the run. I actually passed quite a few people (on the uphill portion) and felt like I got into a good rhythm. When I crossed the finish line, the clock was right around 34 minutes.
My final time was 30 minutes and 9 seconds, which is slow. But it put me in 123rd place among males... that must mean not a lot of people participated! Disappointing time because I felt like I ran pretty fast. But then again, most of the 1st mile was spent walking.
The Good
My dog Brian had a blast. A lot of photographers, friendly vendors and everyone was out with their pets having fun. If I do it again next year, I won't preregister and I'll show up at 8 AM the day of the race, instead of 9:30.
This was also my 3rd race of the year. I'm not sure what my next one will be.
