7th Annual Chocolate Run 10K Race Report
This is the biggest race of the year for my hometown, over 700 people registered. It benefits the Open Hearts Community Mission, a local homeless shelter. The race runs through the campus of Georgia Southern University.
The packet pick-up swag bag is probably the best one I have gotten yet. A cloth tote was filled with local business sponsor promotional items, including a t-shirt, coozie, plastic cup, gel bead ice pack, and coupons for free items containing chocolate from various local restaurants. On race morning, the pavilion was packed full of local businesses with free samples, buckets of chocolate candy at all tables, and tons of free food (fruit, donuts, biscuits and chicken, smoothies, plus hot chocolate, brownies, cookies, chocolate milk, and even chocolate ice cream.) Fun note, the mascot this year was the "chocolate" T-Rex, the costume was provided by myself (was my daughter's halloween costume this year). Had to get a photo. It was a friend's son in the costume, he even ran the kids fun run in it (No small feat, that costume is HARD to run in).
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The weather was cloudy, damp (but not raining), and cool (~55F at race start). Pretty good running weather really. The race is a combined 5k/10k, with a simultaneous start. Being my first 10k, I was a little nervous about getting caught up with the 5k runners, and starting out too fast. I lined up near the start line, and chatting with the folks around me, found a couple 10k runners hoping for a similar pace as mine, so we decided to pace each other to start the race. The "gun" fired, and we were off.
The first mile I kept in a tight group with the other two runners, and we completed it in 6:46. That was exactly where I wanted to be, so was pretty happy with the start. After the first mile, my thought was where were the two races splitting. My one complaint (as you will see) about the race was they didn't have any directional signs, and I hadn't check the route beforehand. They did have volunteers at each intersection who were supposed to be directing runners, but more than a few were cheering, without telling us where to go. But there were a lot of runners ahead of me, so I just followed the crowd. Mile 2 passed at a 6:51 pace, I had pulled in front of the other two runners in my group, as they were sticking to a 7:00 pace. At about mile 2.25, the races split. There was one runner I could see ahead of me about 100 yards, and I got it in my head to try to catch him. I came up to a roundabout, and the volunteers were cheering as I followed him around. Then he got to the next intersection, turned around and pointed in both directions, asking ME which way to go.... uh oh. I did know the general direction, as my friend (dad of T-Rex boy, also the route director) had given me a verbal rundown of the course, so I told him to go right, and followed him (still about 50 yards back at this point). At this point I knew something wasn't right. We were now running on a busy US Hwy, with no sidewalk or running lane. And there had been no volunteer at the corner to give either of us directions. That's when I looked to my right, and saw the two runners I had started with on a parallel road ahead and to the right of me. The volunteers cheering us at the roundabout were supposed to be telling us to go straight through the roundabout, but the runner ahead of me and myself went left out of it, and the volunteers never said a word. Ugh. I yelled at the runner ahead of me to let him know we were off course, but he had headphones in and couldn't hear me. I then cut through the grass between the two roads to get back on track. Before the roundabout I had been about 50 yards ahead of my two starting buddies, but now I was 100 yards behind them. At the next intersection, the runner than had been ahead of me realized he was off track, and was making his way back to us as well, but was behind me another 50 yards.
Took me two miles, but I finally caught back up to the other two runners. I was still keeping a sub 7 pace (6:46 mile 3, 6:51 mile 4), so I resolved to finish that way. Making sure to ask each volunteer which way to go if they weren't already telling us, haha, I managed to stay on track, running mile 5 at 6:53. The route then joined back up with the 5k route, so I ran through the stream of 5k runners to the finish, running mile 6 at 6:55, and finishing with a chip time of 42:27.6. Beat my goal of sub 45 by 2.5 minutes, even with my detour adding .05 miles!
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The finishing award (cause we didn't have enough swag) was a coffee mug, can never have too many of those
Grabbed one and headed to the pavilion to enjoy some of the post race snacks.
It was then that my friend caught up to me and excitedly informed me I had actually won the race! I couldn't believe it!
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In the end, I had a fun time, ran great, ate too much chocolate, and learned a valuable lesson for my future races (study the route before the race!).
