Filthy 5 K

Last night I ran the Filthy 5K part of Riverroock on Brown’s Island in Richmond. I repacked my bag at school while the kids were watching the Water Horse (incidentally an excellent film about a Loch Ness monster), I changed into my running clothes when the bell rang, wheeled my cart from 7th grade back to my room, and got on the road before the buses left the high school. I followed my scribbled directions to a parking deck near the event to find out that five dollar parking did not begin until an hour later. I left to figure out where everyone else was parking, paid my five dollars, parked, and went to check in.

I have not been running consistently. I am actually pretty out of shape. I can cover the distance – just not quickly. For this race, I had to estimate my completion time when I signed up online and I don’t even remember what I put. I know that I based my time on about ten minutes slower than the last race I did, and I still ended up on in the second heat! Not the third or slowest heat.

When I saw the other red tags heading towards the starting chute, I converged with them. There were a lot of greens sprinkled in so I was concerned that I had missed my start time. In reality, poor planning and no loud speakers meant that a lot of people had no idea what was going on when – and I did start with the correct group. Lots of green people got turned around to start again in about seven minutes.

The race started on Brown’s Island and then via the footbridge onto Belle Island. The footbridge is a suspension from an overhead highway bridge and it is designed to sway. It sways a little when you walk on it. Now imagine a lot of people running on it. You could feel it swaying while running. I decided to try to walk that part – but then it swayed even more, so I kept jogging. I think if the bridge had been any longer I would have started to feel nauseous.

The trails on Belle Island are pretty narrow and in most places two people could not run side by side. Some of the faster runners were a bit disgruntled about this because they were having difficulties passing slower runners. I thought it was just fine because it made me keep pace with whoever was in front of me. Also because the trail was narrow, there was a lot of bottlenecking in the rougher sections and obstacles – sort of built in walking/resting areas. I thought this was fine too, and as a result I did not walk as much as I thought I would because of my out-of-shape-ness.

The first obstacle was running into the James, around a buoy, then back on land to crawl through a sand pit, and then back to the trail. This effectively soaked your shoes and got your arms and legs dirty. I wore capris so the bottom of my pants legs were soaked and beating uncomfortably heavy on my legs. Most of the run was on heavily forested trails and I thought it was pretty. The next obstacle was up a near vertical rock scramble that was relatively easy. I thought it was easy because it was so bottlenecked that you slowly made the climb up. Lots of stopping and waiting for others to get out of the way. It would be interesting to know how much faster the course could be run if no one else was on it (or you were the lead runner). Along the top section there was a section of high stepping over ropes. We ran for a while on the tops of Belle Isle and then made the descent. A couple of places it was cobblestoned and everyone slowed here to not turn an ankle. In order to cross the finish line everyone had to slither through a ten to fifteen foot long mud pit. The reason you had to slither was because of the flagging overtop of it. I suppose you could have tried to high-step it, but because of the mass of wriggling bodies and the slippery footing, I think that could have ended in disaster.

After the race, cleanup stations were supposed to be available. It is after all, the Filthy 5K. This consisted of two hoses... Two for the six hundred plus people who did the race – and hoses – not high pressure showers designed to remove mud. Many people claimed they were going to jump in the river or the canal and I thought about it too. The hose line was long and moving slowly. After seeing wet, but clean, people appear on the ridge, I too headed for the canal. The canal was only about three feet deep, cold and had a mushy bottom, but it was sufficient for dunking in and to rinse off mud. I actually felt pretty clean after hoisting myself up the bank and climbing the steep hill. I claimed my bag from the bag check, changed in a port a john, and then walked around to see what else was going on.

There was an air dog competition where dogs were leaping off a platform into a pool to see which one could jump the furthest. It was pretty impressive – and even more so when I found out that they were ordinary dogs. I could have taken Layla and entered her just to see how she would do. They also had some bikers doing stunts on a course and a band. I stood in line forever for an ice cream cone (only three food vendors for now over 1500 people) and sat to listen to Rusted Root. I listened to a few songs and then decided to head home.

As evidence to how cleansing my canal bath was, I did not take a shower when I got home (partially because I was tired) and am on my way to take one now – at nine thirty. I have been up since seven, but I read some, used my new kitchen aid mixer to make some breakfast blueberry orange bread, drank some coffee, and typed this blog.

No big plans today because they were cancelled… well until this evening. Tonight is the 8th grade formal which should be interesting evening entertainment.