August 15th,
2001 - Sharon Regional 5K Race.
This was the last of the Twilight Quad races. I ran the other three so I had to do this one because I would at least get a prize for running at four. The race was up at Buhl Park in Sharon. Heather and I went there around 6:30 for the 7 o’clock race. We stopped at Subway around 6 to get food which wasn’t a good idea. I was feeling that that sub from the moment I finished it until after I finished the race. The race itself wasn’t that good, but I just wanted to write this to complain about the prize drawings.
For running in all the races, Heather and I both got a mini cooler. It’s pretty cool. The only other way to get prizes was to finish in the top 3 in your age group, or in the top 5 overall in one of the races. That effectively screwed me. I was third overall in my age group after all the races, mainly due to only 3 people running all the races, but I still didn’t get any points so that I could get a second prize. That kind of annoyed me.
The race started about 5 after 7 and I was doing okay
until my normal 1.5 mile point. That’s
where I begin to get the side stitch and this time was no exception. Right
before this, there was a bunch of geese in a field and I really wanted to chase
them due to my severe disliking of them from working at Westminster.
I didn’t though and continued on.
I stopped and walked for a few seconds when I got to the 2 mile point
after running up a hill. I had some water and then ran for the finish.
At about 2.5 miles, these annoying people began to show up.
They run the opposite way from you and yell things like “Good job, keep
it up.” I don’t mind this that
much but it is really annoying to me. Stupid
people. Then these two guys started
running right next to me. They had
already finished the race and the one guy was bitching about how he only got
ninth with a time of 16:30. I had
over that by the 2 mile point, and that was about half of what I ran.
He was complaining about cars being in his way or something and how slow
he was. I just wanted to beat him
with a stick or something.
The worst part of the night, and the main reason for me
writing this is the “random” drawing. Since
I didn’t win any prizes, I could have left early, but the head guy, S. Mark
Courtney, said that they would be having a prize drawing for everyone that ran
all 4 races. There were some good
stuff like cubes of pop and soccer balls so we stayed to see if we could win.
Of course the drawing turned out to be a screwjob for us.
The guy informed us that they had forgotten to put everyone’s name in a
hat. So instead, he just took the
list of everyone that ran all the races and said he would call out every fifth
name. He jumped around from number
80 to 10 to 135 until he finished all the fives.
Then he said he would save the leftover prizes for the next race but I
think he gave them to the kids race people.
This was the stupidest random system ever. If you think about it, you have a 1 in 5 shot of getting your
name called. That means you have an
80% chance of losing. Of course,
Heather and I both lost. Also, two
Christiansens won, which pissed me off. Plus
the person who finished 5th and 10th overall got prizes.
These people have already got stuff from getting so high in the overall
standings. They don’t need
anything else. Give them to the
lower people. Fifth place was Mr.
Courtney, what a surprise. Heather
said he did it this way just so he could win a prize.
This drawing is in no way random. Pulling
the names out of a hat is random, this is royally screwing me over.
I was not happy and ranted most of the way home about it.
I wanted to send him a letter at his P.O. Box in Mercer complaining about
it. Stupid race people.
Well, that’s about it for the last race of the year. I might run the Pizza Joe’s race but I’m not sure. I haven’t had much luck this year. I only won one thing and that was because I was the only on in my division. Maybe I’ll have better luck next year.