Clear Lake, MI
28:50
7th overall (out of ~35)
Ok, I have run 62 races in the modern era, and this one will be one of the most memorable. Yes, you see that right, a 28:50 for a 5K. Well, they admit it is a bit long. Just so you know, the winning time was 24:30. This week I was thinking about looking for a race to run this weekend just for fun. I kept forgetting until 9 am this morning when I checked and found this race that was 20 minutes away and was to begin at 10 am. The description from www.RunMichigan.com made me jump at the oppurtunity:
“Probably the toughest 5K you have ever attempted. Roughly 4 loops of what locals call “the switchbacks”. Dirt, rocks, uphill, poor footing predominately on tight, terrible trails. Hopefully icy, slippery, and/or drift-covered. Also- the course is probably long. The loops cover a section of the Waterloo trail system, and on Green Road, a little-traveled chunk of hills and dirt. Basically, it is the stuff that would make a Mule puke.”
There is a summer version of this race, held July 30th at high noon. You can probably guess why. 
This is a fundraiser of sorts for the local HS running club, and 80% of the runners were between the ages of 15 and 19. There were just a handful of us old people.
The cost was a $5 bill. No check, no technology based payment. No pre-registration, no age awards. You got an award if you finished the race without ever walking, which was only half of us. (A nice little keychain) The hill was pretty bad, but the footing was terrible. There was 10″ of snow that was NOT packed down, even after the whole crew had run over it a bunch of times. You could not get a full stride, so it was just plain akward all the way around. The course was 3.5 times aroud a loop that was about a mile long. We started at the bottom most point of the loop and yes, finished at the highest point of the loop, doing the hill 4 times. Oh yeah, the temperature was 9 degrees with a windchill close to zero.
I treated it as a hill workout, and yes, it was hard not walking. Each loop getting slower and on that short section that was on plowed gravel road, I took my sweet time catching my breath.
Exactly 90 minutes after I knew this race existed, I had finished it. The spontineity of the whole thing I think added to the enjoyment of it. It was such a blur, it almost feels like a dream. Good thing I took a picture, which by the way is with my new phone. 1000 times better than my other one, just compare the shot for this race to my last one, just 2 weeks ago.
