Monster Dash 5K

Last Saturday while Lacey was running Wicked, my mom and I ran the Monster Dash. This was a local new to me 5K race.

1. Packet pick up was available the night before, which I was glad it was, because this prevented us from having to be there an hour earlier on race morning.  I think everyone else had the same idea to come on Friday evening because the lines were long.

This was the t-shirt we were given.

I did not know that our race registration included a race T-shirt (because few local races do), but when I got to the counter the nice lady informed me that I did not mark a size for the shirt so they took the liberty of ordering one for me which was nice, but they ordered me a LARGE!  They did not know me so I guess how were they supposed to know.  My mom also missed the shirt part on her registration as well but they ordered her a medium. We switched shirts when we left packet pick up.

Race morning.

2. Yes, I too am disappointed in my race day outfit! Me of all people who loves making race costumes did not have an actual “costume” for this race. Making a costume was the main reason I wanted to do this race!  I literally threw this outfit together Friday night.  I don’t mean to make excuses because it’s not like I didn’t know about this race for over a month now, but I do think all my energy was consumed with Baltimore, which was run just the previous weekend.  I knew as soon as I laid this outfit out that I was going to be dressed too warmly, and I was!

3. When we got to the race, it was such a festive atmosphere.  There were festive decorations and they even had Halloween music playing from their sound system.  There were a lot of people dressed up. Some were in costumes and some had on just festive attire like myself. I saw a lot of orange pumpkin shirts.

4. Home base for the race was at a local elementary school and that is where the start and finish lines were.  The route left the school and looped through a neighborhood with many rolling hills.  The course itself was even festive. It was marked clearly with orange signs that had monsters painted on them. And at most of the intersections there were costumed volunteers to make sure you stayed on track.  This was the first race I ever ran that was marked in Kilometers instead of miles (which obviously makes sense since it is a 5K) but was still new to me.  Every few kilometers they had obstacles, like jumping through hoops and such. We did not stop to do any of the obstacles but I did read that if you did, you time would be adjusted to reflect that.   Since my mom had been suffering from planter fasciitis, we decided to just do a run walk and not worry about our time anyway.

 

This was the finish line for the kids race. The adults had just a regular blow up arch..

As we ran in towards the finish there was a slight down hill and the path leading to the finish line was lined in pumpkins which I thought was cute! 

5. A lot of people stuck around at the finish area. The Halloween music was still playing and they had snacks and drinks. We hung out for a little bit and talked to a yellow lab puppy and her owner. The lab ran the race dressed in a soccer jersey!

It was sunny this morning and really a great day for a race.  My mom and I both enjoyed running it and will consider running it again next year. Perhaps we will bring my dad along next time.  Oh, and I will try to actually come up with a costume next time too. Hmm, maybe a group costume???  -M

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