Another long break with two trips to the U.K., the festival in Bologna, then Canada and Alaska, it’s been three months since I ran. The race was free, but also featured a first: custom-printed bibs with the name of the race on them…but no timing! I can’t recall the last race that didn’t use one of the many local and regional timing companies to track the racers. Even more unorthodox was the fact that the organizers held a raffle before the start, meaning racers about to run a 5K were left quizzically holding gift baskets.

The course was a little odd: not a word of it was spoken in advance, maybe because it was a pretty boring out and back, but there were also other strange elements: the water stop was really oddly placed, off the course, and featured hundreds of cups that weren’t going to be used. After 110+ races you start noticing things like this, I guess… Anyway, I never caught all the people I thought I would, and am just not as fast as I used to be, but knocked off another town.

Sgt Scoular’s Overdose Awareness and Recovery Run | 5k | 8/27/23 | 24:41 | 111/169