Thanksgiving Day Race 10K

Thanksgiving Day Race 10K

Thanksgiving Day Race 10K

( 3 reviews )
33% of reviewers recommend this race
  • Cincinnatti,
    Ohio,
    United States
  • November
  • 6 miles/10K
  • Road Race
  • Event Website

Casey

Kentucky, United States
6 6
2013
"This Race Brings Out the Worst in People!!!"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
Casey 's thoughts:

This race experience was pretty nutty.

First of all, traffic was insane. You'd think WKRP was giving away free turkeys from a helicopter again with all the people (15,000, to roughly exact) who converged on downtown Cincinnati yesterday morning. Erica and I rode together and with our poor navigational abilities combined and paired with traffic, I parked my car at 830a, 30 minutes before start and a half hour after entering downtown. Erica scouted out Porta-Potty Land while I pumped in the car and 5 oz later, we were headed to the start.

It was freezing and packed. We had 15 minutes to kill so we looked for her friend. We never found her, but it was way better than standing in the cold, just thinking about how cold it was. 15,000 is a lot of people. It is 66% of the population of my city and it certainly looked like it as we all lined up in the start according to pace. We were so far away from the start that we didn't hear a single word that the announcers were saying, we only caught snippets of The National Anthem, and we did not hear the gun go off. It took us 12 minutes to even make it to the starting line. TG4Chiptiming.

I'd like to say, "And then we were off!!" but somehow, despite there being pace corrals, we ended up behind walkers. And walkers. And walkers with linked arms. And more walkers. So, Erica and I meandered through the course, talking while jogging. Around mile 3 we dodged some more walkers and I almost seriously wiped out. I tripped on a curb, the concrete was flying at my face, my arms and running-tight-adorned legs were flailing attractively--and I regained my balance. Without falling. And I'm sure that little detour shaved 5 seconds off my time. Score.

15,000 racers do not "thin out" over the course of a 10k. We were tripping over walkers the entire time, but we gave up any hopes of smashing records anyway and were still talking as we crossed the finish line.

Then, after we had our chips removed, we went to grab a snack. This is where things got weird. All of the food booths (SunnyD, Crystal Lite, peanut butter crackers, bagels, apples, etc.) were getting swarmed by grabby sweaty people. It was like a feeding frenzy. People were walking around with ARM LOADS of food! Some had 6 to 7 bottles of water/juice and others carried discarded cardboard boxes full of crackers and snacks! The bagel booth no longer had volunteers (I would have jumped ship, too) so people were REACHING INTO THE BAGS with their SWEATY, SNOTTY FINGERS and getting bagels. Around these bags was a crowed at least 20 people deep. DISGUSTING. Seriously. People were walking around with these black boxes and my hungry brain thought "sandwiches!" so I asked several people what they were and NO ONE HAD A CLUE. One of these women had MULTIPLES of this box and had no idea what she was holding. I found out later the boxes had a glasses case inside. Seeing all these people hoarding and grabbing and behaving like wild animals was so disturbing. It was the lowest point of racing that I have personally witnessed. You hear things like "Oh, I can't believe someone got trampled at this concert/Wal-Mart/etc." but after seeing how crazy this mob of people was getting, I can totally see how that happens.

And the underlying kicker: 99% of these people were going to go and have a gigantic meal in a matter of hours.

So, anyway. I finished in 1:05, which is 5 minutes slower than my goal, but whatever. Between the huge crowd and the post-race snack zombie mobs, I'm fairly certain I won't run this race again any time soon.

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