Racing for the Cure

So this morning I did the Austin Race for the Cure. More like awkwardly dodge slow people for the cure. I've been doing the race since I was in high school and this year was probably my last. It has grown by leaps and bounds every year, which is a good thing for the Susan G. Komen foundation but not so good for me. I know that its not a "real" race but rather a race run (slowly walked) by people who are doing it not because they love to race but because it is for a cause they strongly believe in. Fine. Thats the reason I do it too. I can run 3 miles by myself for free but I like to support breast cancer awareness and research. Here's the thing that really irked me this morning. Race for the Cure is organized by Runtex, as are most all 5 or 10K races in Austin. This morning's Race for the Cure was the most poorly organized race, overall, that I have every been to in Austin. Granted the participants were perhaps a little more clueless about race etiquette, how things work, etc. but it was still a royal fucking mess. They had the timed runners end in a chute that kind of corralled them into a pile, with no way out, which was then encircled by another chute that held runners who were in the untimed division and waiting to start the race. There was nowhere for all the tired, sweaty timed runners to go and it made a bottleneck for the untimed runners to have to get through in order to even start the stupid race. And at the narrowest part of this bottleneck someone had the brilliant idea to park an SUV. After standing in this horseshoe shaped bottleneck situation for half an hour trying to get to the start line to actually begin the race, my mom and I gave up, turned around, skipped the start line, and met up with the runners (slow walkers) across the bridge and started running there. So I didn't do the whole cross the start/finish line and run over the bridge thing. I figured my sanity, and the lives of the annoying women whom I wanted to strangle, was worth it. From now on, I'm going to make a $25 donation to the Susan G. Komen foundation every year and sleep in for the cure. I don't need to run a 5K with 25,000 other people on a Sunday morning to support breast cancer research and awareness. I run a 5K four to six times a week. Its called the Missris run, its free, and I'm (thankfully) the only participant.