Last night Andi and I ran in our first 10k. Yes, last night. At 10:00pm. Get it? 10k at 10:00? And it gets better: it was sponsored by Target. So it was the Target 10k at 10:00pm!! It was also one of the most amazing and strange events we have ever participated in.
The main race of the night was the Midnight Marathon (see how they did it again?), but there were a host of others; in addition to the 10k there was a corporate relay, a family fun run, and a 5k. All in all we heard there were 18,000 participants; in addition to the support staff and friends and family there to cheer everyone on, it was quite a crowd in the Bangalore night.
Since it was our first 10k, Andi and I both got personal records last night, although because we weren't chipped and neither one of us paid much attention to the time, we really aren't sure what our PR's might be. We are sure, though, that we will be able to beat them in April at the Bangalore 10k if for no other reason than that the course layout will be better. We know it will be better because it can't be worse.
Aside from the general craziness of the start/finish area, which felt like it had been organized the night before, the race and course was, how shall we say this, oddly planned. The start was, if you remember that we are in India where the phrase "wait in line" doesn't exist, quite chaotic: rather than having staggered starts based on prior or estimated race times, everyone just kind of milled around by the start line until the President & Managing Director of Target India dropped the start flag. Because of this start, the first km was sheer madness. It was exactly like driving on Bangalore roads, with everyone weaving in and out, trying to avoid massive collisions, with some people walking, some people jogging, some people running, and everyone jumbling together.
The other craziness of the race was that the course was an out and back 5k. Because this was Bangalore, where the car rules, the race couldn't shut down all lanes of traffic, so we runners were often relegated to two or three lanes on one side of the rode. Which was too narrow, apparently, for lane dividers, but not too narrow for two directions of racing. For (much too) much of the race, we were running into oncoming racers, or rather, oncoming runners were running into us. Andi and I didn't run into anyone, but there were some close calls, close enough that we were always readjusting our pace. All of which is a long way of saying that it was hard for Andi and I to find any kind of pace.
Maybe our PR's from last night might not last very long, but they were awfully fun to get. And that, at the end of all of it, is really quite amazing: a 10k at 10:00pm, that was just completely ass-backwards as a race, shared with 20,000 plus people ended up being a ridiculously fun night.
The main race of the night was the Midnight Marathon (see how they did it again?), but there were a host of others; in addition to the 10k there was a corporate relay, a family fun run, and a 5k. All in all we heard there were 18,000 participants; in addition to the support staff and friends and family there to cheer everyone on, it was quite a crowd in the Bangalore night.
Since it was our first 10k, Andi and I both got personal records last night, although because we weren't chipped and neither one of us paid much attention to the time, we really aren't sure what our PR's might be. We are sure, though, that we will be able to beat them in April at the Bangalore 10k if for no other reason than that the course layout will be better. We know it will be better because it can't be worse.
Aside from the general craziness of the start/finish area, which felt like it had been organized the night before, the race and course was, how shall we say this, oddly planned. The start was, if you remember that we are in India where the phrase "wait in line" doesn't exist, quite chaotic: rather than having staggered starts based on prior or estimated race times, everyone just kind of milled around by the start line until the President & Managing Director of Target India dropped the start flag. Because of this start, the first km was sheer madness. It was exactly like driving on Bangalore roads, with everyone weaving in and out, trying to avoid massive collisions, with some people walking, some people jogging, some people running, and everyone jumbling together.
Maybe our PR's from last night might not last very long, but they were awfully fun to get. And that, at the end of all of it, is really quite amazing: a 10k at 10:00pm, that was just completely ass-backwards as a race, shared with 20,000 plus people ended up being a ridiculously fun night.
Your faces show how much fun you had. That is really neat.
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