The Get Fit TRYathlon & Get Fit 5K/10K are put on for the Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters organization that serves Crawford County. It is a youth mentoring agency that wants to encourage children, adults, & their families to TRY something new. The events are on two separate days allowing participants to enjoy both. I ran the 10K and will review that event.

The event was in my town, so I felt like I needed to do it-AND it's for kids! BONUS!!!

The start was on the Pittsburg State University campus so there was plenty of parking and an easy walk to packet pick up and the start.

The weather was nice but humid.

Packet pick-up: I arrived at 6:45 (race start was 7:15) so I had plenty of time.....so I thought. There was a long line and it did not move quickly. Apparently they had a glitch with the computers and that pushed them behind. The race didn't start until 7:30 which was no big deal. As I was waiting in line the people ahead of me were talking about last year's race and how the bike leader led them a mile and a half out too far. Bummer!

The starting line wasn't ideal-there was a big drop off between the sidewalk and the grass and no timing mat. We started out on the campus trail and it was good. The first mile went through the Veteran's Memorial and that was cool. Heading on to the second mile there were mile markers and volunteers. After Mile 2 painted on the ground was "Keep Going". Apparently it was meant for motivation-we took it as-keep going straight! The volunteer that was supposed to be directing traffic was confused about where she was supposed to be and we went a mile and a half farther out than we should have. At 3.2 miles in we (three women) decided to turn around because we couldn't see ANY markers. The men (four) kept going. On our way back a volunteer was driving by asking if there were anymore participants behind us. I'm not sure how they figured it out, but we had already HAD ENOUGH!!!

We continued back the way we came instead of running the "rest" of the route as we were already going to be way over. The volunteers kept trying to tell us to go back to the route but we just went on back. As we the three of us were having our own 10K we chatted about this happening last year.... TWO years IN A ROW!!!!!

Once we finally made it to the finish line (timing mat) we were totally over the whole race. NO PR TODAY!!! I went to get my print out and talked to the timing guy. He said he knew there was a problem when it was 44 minutes into it an NObody was coming through.

I stuck around, in disbelief, thinking they would maybe say something about the route to those of us that were mislead but they never did.

Needless to say, I will not be running this race again. BUT! On a positive note-it was for charity and that is what I am focusing on!