Based on my fantastic experience at this 10k last year, I signed up for it again this year. BTW, the race is huge. There was a segment in Charleston's Post & Courier with a list of the country's largest 20 races in 2010. The Bridge Run was #6, beating the Country Music Half in Nashville, the Boston Marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, etc.
You would think with the size and popularity with this race, and in its 35th year running, they would have worked out any glitches, right?
Wrong.
The race was scheduled to start at 8 am. Where was I at 8 am? Oh, I was in my corral ready to go. What time did we actually start?
9 am.
So the race starts in Mt. Pleasant, which is across the river and bridge from Charleston. A lot of runners park in Charleston and take buses to the race. About thirty buses were supposed to be going at a time, but this year, that didn't happen. Apparently some bus drivers didn't show up, not as many buses were moving, and boom we are stuck with an hour delay. The worst part was that the emcees kept saying "We're going to start in 30 seconds" "We're going to start in two minutes" "We're going to start in five minutes" and that went on for an hour. After 30-45 minutes of that, we couldn't help but boo them.
So we lost an hour of time and I in turn lost my mojo. By the time we actually got to run, I had zero desire to run anymore. It is so disheartening to get all pumped up for a race and then not even want to run it! I ran anyway, but finished five minutes later than last year with a time of 1:02:02.
The Bridge Run committee issued official apology letters and even a video. At this point, I am not sure if I will do it next year. Part of me wants to run it again, with my mojo in full effect, because I know I can do better!
Have you ever been in a race that was FUBAR?
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