GF's plantar fasciitis has improved dramatically the past few weeks, so we went forward with our plan to run the Shawshank Hustle 7k last weekend. This is the longest race GF has ever competed in and she did a great job despite the numerous snags of this one.
I'm usually pretty forgiving of first year races. This one had way too many snags for me to consider giving it another shot. There was way too much confusion about the race distance. It was listed as a 7k for the longest time, then it was listed as a 4 miler, then I saw stuff listing it as a 7k again. Seriously. If you visit the website now (after the race!) it's listed as a 4 miler. Then there was the busing situation. Good grief. We got to the pick-up site, which was about two miles away, with over an hour to spare. Should be plenty of time, right? Wrong. They had a few buses available and we waited for over an hour. They even moved the start back to 9:00 from 8:30 and there were still people waiting to be bused. Plus, it was so packed at the reformatory that you could hardly move, making the first mile of the race a total cluster. The race was capped at 3000 and I'm honestly not sure if the organizers visited the site beforehand to see if it could accommodate that number. Getting a bus on the way back took another 45 minutes or so. I've been checking the event Facebook page and people are saying everyone should have been there earlier. I don't like waiting around for 2-3 hours before a race. One hour should be plenty of time. Finally, the water stops. The first one was around 2 miles into the race. The second was a half mile after that. And that was it. That's dangerous for folks on a hot day in July. I get this was more of a "theme" race with with the Shawshank theme but it was poorly organized.
Now, the race itself. The start was a cluster with an uphill right out of the gate. We then turned toward Mansfield and made our way downtown. We had a few nice downhills early on and GF did some light jogging during these sections. She actually wasn't far off her usual pace for the first two miles. Her plantar felt good for the first few miles, too. We turned again onto Main Street and made our way south into downtown. If you know downtown Mansfield, you know this is a huge uphill and it was quite a battle. I grabbed GF a water at the top of the hill and checked how she was doing. So far, so good. I could tell she was having a fun time.
We hit the turnaround and got the nice downhill after all that uphill. GF was still looking good as we hit the second water station. She did start to feel the plantar a little bit on the downhill which didn't surprise us. The varied terrain probably helped her out but a steep downhill wasn't the best thing for her. We made our way back out of town and I requested regular progress reports. We turned back toward the reformatory for the last big hill and GF certainly felt this one. I kept reminding her that this was the last hill left and that she had this one in the bag. After turning and heading back toward the reformatory, she wanted to try to jog the rest of the way to the finish. I grabbed her hand (just in case) and we ran to the finish. For her longest race ever, GF finished in 1:19:07. She was 1373/1695 overall for the women's division, plus she beat a hundred or so of the guys. Her pace actually wasn't far off her 5k effort.
I'm extremely proud of how well GF did at this race after battling plantar for well over a month. She's turned the corner and we're looking at scheduling her a 5k in September or October. Next up for me is an odd distance that I actually completed this morning.
Next race: Great Mohican 17k- Perrysville, OH
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