My friend Stephanie and I made a goal to do a 5K together each month for the rest of 2018, and so far, each month has been a bust. In September, she was sick, so I had to do the 5K alone. In October, I was sick and she had something come up, so we both had to skip, though we did a 0.5K later in the month. This month, we chose the Run For Mom 5K, which benefitted a home for older/disabled women. The 5K took place this past Saturday, and for once, everything lined up for the two of us to both go!

Except…the “5K” wasn’t actually a 5K. This was the worst-organized event I’ve been to in a long time. There was no communication with the participants, not even when we contacted them directly. Stephanie and I had no idea where we were supposed to go, and just had a general direction (ie “it’ll be at this particular lake”). We headed down and basically just circled, looking for any sign of a 5K. Eventually we found a place where a bunch of kids were wearing shirts of the same color, so we parked and tried to find someone who knew what was going on. About 15 mins before the 5K was supposed to start, someone directed us to a small building where we could pick up our race packets. We managed to get to where we were supposed to be in time to start our walk, which was two laps around the lake. And how much was two laps around the lake? It was 2.7 miles, or a 4.3K. Right around the time we finished our first lap, one of the runners was approaching the finish line where they had a timer clock. As she passed us, she caught sight of the clock and exclaimed, “No way!” (cynically, not joyous) because we’d been told that two laps was a 5k!

So, okay, it wasn’t a 5K, and it was badly organized. We still walked our two laps even though we were frustrated and it was windy, raining, and in the 40s out. It was pretty by the lake, and we’d paid for this, so okay. We did it. But then we got to the end, ahead of many of the walkers, and the water station was already packed away and the organizers were mostly gone and it was basically like there was no event going on anymore. The whole thing was a mess! We just left and went out for breakfast at that point. This is definitely not a “5K” that we’d do again. Hopefully our December event will be the one that finally works out for us!