The Various Ramblings of a Runner: Why night races aren't always fun

Happy Halloween!!!!!

After a great weekend of 5ks I decided I needed to run another soon, so when I saw that they were having a Halloween 5k on Tuesday night I decided to race. The Bully's 5k for United Way at Mississippi State University started at 6:30, just after dark and took us around the campus. There was also a costume contest that the runners were participating in. I had no intention of winning the contest but still sort of dressed up for fun (and got some more use out of my Supergirl shirt). This time I paired it with some cute knee high socks to keep my ankles warm and thought it turned out pretty awesome.


My serious superhero face

They handed out glow in the dark necklaces and bracelets so that cars might possibly see us during the run, but I don't think it worked very well for me. I wore the necklace wrapped around my arm because I thought it might be hard to run with it hitting me in the face.

The start line was located at an intersection and I had a good feeling about the course since there seemed to be plenty of cops around to block off traffic. We started uphill, which was challenging, but I still managed to run a pretty fast first mile (for me). The entire course was rather hilly and it seemed like the uphills were more plentiful than the downhills. The further we ran, the more traffic seemed to be picking up and the less the roads were blocked off for us. There were a few times I thought I might get hit by a car and there was one dangerous part where we were supposed to cross the street to turn down another street and there was just car after car not willing to stop and let us over.

The shirts are super cute, Halloween themed!

After about 2.5 miles my legs were feeling shot, guess I shouldn't have spent 2 hours at the gym in the morning including doing a speed workout on the treadmill. But I powered through and tried to figure out where the heck the finish line was. As I turned down another street and stayed on the sidewalk due to all the cars, one of the volunteers told me I needed to cross the street to the parking lot and finish line. I cut through the grass and headed towards the cones I saw but still wasn't at the finish line. I rounded the corner and saw some people standing around but there was no clock or cones or anything visibly marking the finish line. This is the point where I normally would have sprinted to the finish but I was so confused and wondering if maybe I had already crossed the finish line that I just kind of jogged across the line. I handed over the sticker I was required to wear on my shirt (and hope it didn't fall off during the run) and then wondered why in the world they had us wear racing bibs. I checked my Garmin, since there was no clock at the finish line and it said 25:31, which was 4 seconds shy of a PR, dang it! But I'm pretty proud of that time considering the traffic, hills, tired legs, and confusion.

I hung around and had a banana and a snack size bag of candy corn (the redemption for this race) because I was positive I had placed 2nd in my age group. Unbeknownst to me until the award ceremony, they were only giving out 1st place for each age group (not to mention they were 10 year age groups) For the $25 I paid to run in this race I would have liked a few more awards offered, but I can't be too mad as long as my money went towards a good cause. I had gotten all excited about getting one of these cute trophies, even though I'm not a Mississippi State fan, it would have been a cool souvenir from our 3 years here in Mississippi.

Super cute cowbells, wish I could have won one.

I didn't have my camera with me since I don't like to run with any extra stuff but here are some photos before the race started. I really liked seeing all the creative costumes and I loved the fact that all the volunteers were dressed up. These photos are by Harriet Laird / MSU University Relations copyright, Mississippi State University.