Yesterday, Chad and I got up bright and early to run a relay race a friend organized. There were three teams of four, and we each ran 4.1 to 4.9 miles (in theory) along a bike trail going from Boulder to Thornton. Chad and I are not sting runners, but that was known before we started. The goal was for all of us to end up at the house where they were serving breakfast around the same time. This would have worked great if some of us hadn’t gotten lost.
The runners in the first wave had the easiest path to follow. From my understanding, there weren’t really any confusing intersections. The problem they had was that it was basically all uphill with a bit of a downhill at the end. Wavetwo apparently got confusing when going through Louisville. One runner somehow ended up on a parade route. Chad was able to stay on the planned path, but he said there was a lot of uphill as well even though the map said it was “basically flat.” I was in the third wave which was supposed to be an easy one to follow. It mostly went along the highway then across a bridge over the highway to a park behind a hotel. I got lost just after the hotel exhausted, dehydrated, and knowing it was taking too long. I called Chad for help, explained where I was, and stayed put until they could pick me up (our last runner already took off to try to avoid the heat). Apparently, the other runners in my wave had each come from different directions, so no one was surprised one of us got completely lost. It turned out I was only about a quarter mile away from the end point. The last wave had a detour that made two runner get lost and someone had to go find them.
Overall, I had a lot of fun. If they do this again next year, I hope they invite us again. I know they put a lot of work into it, and they didn’t even charge a fee. I would have totally been willing to at least pay for the food. I also wouldn’t have blamed them if they wanted something for all of the work they put into planning the route even though it got confusing. I wouldn’t even mind running the same route again now that I know a bit more about where I would be going.
