The Race That Almost Wasn’t…….The Road to the NYC Rock ‘N’ Roll 10K

As anyone who races knows a good plan is necessary for race morning so everything runs smoothly and you get to the race on time with very little stress.  As anyone who has ever made a plan also knows sometimes things go wrong and everything goes to hell, which is exactly what happened Saturday morning.

The plan:

• 4:45 am:  Wake up, get dressed and eat
• 5:10 am:  Leave the house to drive to Crystal’s
• 5:30 am: Arrive at Crystal’s and head out to Queens to George’s house
• 6:00 am:  Arrive at George’s and head to Prospect Park (15-20 minute drive)
• 6:15-6:30 am: Arrive at Prospect Park, get our race numbers, find our corrals and wait for the start of the race…stress free.

What actually happened:

I started toward my car and the raccoon was peaking out from behind the fence watching me…even more scary but it ran off before I could get a pic.  I should’ve took that as an omen but everything was going according to plan until we left George’s house to head to Prospect Park……from that point on it was all downhill.  When Crystal made the turn to get on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway this is what we found:

The traffic was pretty much at a dead stop.  Being a New Yorker you would think I would be used to traffic…..but not on a Saturday morning!  I mean do they really need to do construction on a Saturday morning…..first the 2 right lanes were closed then the 2 left lanes were closed…..AAAAH!!!!!

At least we got to see some nice views of Manhattan while we sat stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.

Nearly 45 minutes after we left George’s house the traffic cleared….Yay!!!   I was thrilled until Crystal took a wrong turn sending us over the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhatttan.

We turned right back around and took the Manhattan Bridge back to Brooklyn.

Now it was nearly 7 o’clock and we still weren’t at Prospect Park, I was pretty sure we were going to miss the race because we both still had to pick up our numbers.  We arrived at Prospect Park a little after 7 am.  We were looking around for the race and saw some cones but not a big crowd so I asked another runner if he knew where the race was and he said right up ahead in the park so Crystal and I left George with the car and started running.  After a couple of minutes and still no start line we were starting to panic, we asked a few people and they said to keep going straight and we would find the start line.  By this point Crystal was exhausted and told me to just go on ahead so I started running and after about 3 miles I finally came upon the start line.

At this point I was ready to pass out from running so hard.  It was 7:25 and the race was supposed to begin at 7;30 and I still had to get my number.  When I finally found the area where I had to get my number I found this line:

The check-in was under the white gazebo area and there were at least 60-100 people on line in front of me.  I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I was never going to start this race on time, if at all.  Luckily the line went pretty fast, the race started late and as I just got my race # pinned to my shirt my corral was leaving so I jumped right in and started running….again.  I had hopes of finishing this race between 50-52 minutes but after running 3 miles to the start I pretty much pushed that goal out of my mind and just ran.

The race was actually a loop around Prospect Park that you had to run twice….I am not a big fan of these types of races because I find them a little boring plus in this particular race you had to run up this huge hill twice, but the second time up the hill I felt like I was going to throw up.  I managed to make it up without throwing up or passing at and it was literally all down hill from there to the finish line.

I am thrilled with my time considering I had to run 3 miles to the start and I wasn’t prepared to run 9 miles on Saturday.  Crystal finished in an impressive 48:29…not!  Here is her official time:

Can you find the difference between Crystal’s and my results?  Ok I’ll tell you, Crystal does not have a time under 3.3 miles.  Why you ask?  This is because when she reached the area where she should’ve one straight and then ran the second loop she actually went left to the finish.  Why did this happen?  Disorganization if you ask me, she said there wasn’t anyone really directing people where to go and by the time she realized she made a wrong turn she was at the finish line.

At least the medal was nice:

The ride home should have been easy but of course it wasn’t…….a 30 minute ride ended up taking us over an hour because Crystal’s GPS decided to take through the streets of Brooklyn instead of taking us on a parkway.  Crystal also has a little problem listening to the GPS and tens to miss her turns, after one missed turn she turned down another block leaving us stuck behind this:

Unable to get around the garbage truck or turn around because we were on a one-way street we just had to wait.  Ten minutes later we reached the end of the block and finally got around with what must have been the slowest garbage men I have ever seen.  I finally arrived home at 11:40 am.  I have seen enough of Brooklyn to last a long time, I don’t think I will be running anymore races there anytime in the near future.

After a stressful morning we walked around the craft fair in Merrick and then we ended the night at The Good Life with a much deserved Creme Brûlée beer.

How was everyone else’s weekend.  Did anyone else run the Rock ‘N’ Roll 10K in Brooklyn?