ZOOMA Cape Cod 2015 Race Recap

Last Saturday marked another ZOOMA Cape Cod race in the books. Unlike my former ZOOMA races, I decided to do the 10k instead of the half marathon. Fingers crossed I will be running the Harwich Cranberry Harvest Half on Sunday (as a training run), but looking at the track of Tropical Storm Joaquin, it’s looking like that might be in jeopardy. I don’t mind a little bit of rain, but soaking rain and 20 mph winds over 13 miles doesn’t sound like too much fun!

But back to ZOOMA Cape Cod. I love that each year I get to meet up with some of my most favorite running blogger friends including Nancy, Dani, and Jessica (who stayed with me Friday night). We met up on Friday night after number pick up for a little chatting over appetizers. Unfortunately I had to bring the 3 boys with me this year, so I couldn’t stay for too much conversation or dinner. They were troopers though–there for 2 hours and still smiling. William decided at about 7:30 he’d had enough, so we headed home for some pizza and an early bed time for moi and Jessica.

We woke up to absolutely GORGEOUS running weather! There are so many reasons that fall is my favorite season here on the Cape, and the type of running weather we got race day morning was a major one. It was in the mid-50s, sunny, clear, and no wind. It was a little chilly waiting around at the start, but it wasn’t long before we were called to walk up to the start. We did have time for a quick pre-race ambassador shot (thanks Nancy!):

The 10k started a little further up the road, so we walked to the start and lined up behind the police car. It felt really funny to be at the very beginning of the group; a fellow runner and I kept joking that we didn’t want to be the ones in the very front! Anyhow, off we went and a clear front-runner emerged out of the gates (Sarah from Run Far Girl). Two more runners were in front of me and that was it for about the first two miles. Here’s where the story gets fun…

After we were directed to the left on Old Dock Road, I saw the two runners in front of me head past the bike path where I thought we were supposed to turn left, but the two women in front of me headed towards 28A. Since there was no one directing us up the bike path or any obvious signage, I thought maybe they changed the course.

Shortly after I passed where we should have turned I saw two women running back toward me and asked if we were supposed to have turned up the bike path. They yelled yes, so I turned around. I probably looked like a crazy lady screaming at the police detail and group on the corner where we made the initial left. I kept yelling that the course wasn’t marked. Sarah was long gone from our sight and others who noticed the mistake were hot on our heels.

I had added 1/4 mile onto my run, and I wasn’t very happy about it. I was so frustrated that we had gone out of the way and that there was no one (or sign) to show us where we should have turned. I tried not to let it get to me, but I had been feeling so good before that. I powered on and tried to keep the two women ahead of me in my sight. We clicked along on the bike path, as we tried to pick up the pace to off-set the extra distance.

The last big uphill around mile 5 felt like a mountain, and I lost a little time there. Thankfully, it was all downhill after we reached the top. My husband had passed me in the minivan with the kids on the way to the finish, so their cheers powered me on. I saw them up ahead to the right near the finish, and I summoned up enough energy for a finishing kick to cross officially at 49:28. I had stopped my watch at 6.2 miles to get an accurate 10k time, and that was 47:19 (avg 7:39 min/mile).

I was elated to finish my first 10k ever (immediate PR lol) under my goal of 50 minutes. What kills me is that my official time reflects an extra 1/4 mile! 😉 I headed down to the beach for a quick post-race massage and to feel the sand under my feet on Old Silver beach. Jessica and I headed up to check our results, and it gets interesting again…

I plug my bib number into the computer at the results tent, and lo and behold it says no results found. “WTF,” I am thinking to myself. I just laid it all out on the line, ran an extra quarter-mile, and now it appears as though I haven’t even run the race?? The timing guy was quite rude and simply wrote down my bib number and said he’d take it over to “the timing guy.” I check again almost an hour later–still no results shown. I finally tracked down a race director who walked me to the timing official. Meanwhile, I’ve missed the awards ceremony for the 10k in which I actually won my age group and came in sixth overall. Insert sad face here.

The timing guy assures me that in fact my chip did register but there was no information for me in the system. I discovered what happened when I got home. At number pick up, they assign a number to you in the computer when you arrive at the pick up table. The person who assigned my number juxtaposed the digits and entered 4670 instead of 6470. Any how, it got sorted out on Monday, and my results are now listed accurately.

I have mixed emotions about this year’s race. While I am super psyched about how well I ran and pushed myself farther than I thought I could go, I feel kind of frustrated about the lack or organization in terms of making sure the course was marked and that things were working smoothly with timing, etc. Maybe it’s because the 10k has about half the entrants of the half marathon; I just wish it could have been a smoother racing and post-race experience.

All in all, it was a beautiful day to run and run fast, and I got to see some of my AWESOME running friends!

Did you run ZOOMA Cape Cod? How was your race??