On July 20, 2014, I participated in the Lindsay Milk Run. I got a free entry to this race from the Team Running Free Lottery. I was surprised, and excited that i had won it. It was a road race, and there were two options as far as the distances to choose from. A 5km course and a 10km course. I ended up choosing the 5km course.
My race started at 8:30 in the morning, which meant an early start to the day. It was a cool, cloudy morning; perfect running weather for me. We were all lined up, taking up the whole width of the road, when we were told that we had to all squish in and only take up half of it because the timing mat wasn’t long enough to fit on the whole road. This made for a very squishy, and almost dangerous. Many people were being pushed, shoved, and even tripped! It would’ve been much better had the timing may been across the whole road, something i think they need to change for next year.
Within the first few hundred meters, the race opened up, and there was much more room. The actual course was a big loop, going through the neighborhood where it was held. The view wasn’t too exciting, just houses and a couple other buildings the whole way. One good thing about the course was that it was very flat, with just one small hill. Kilometer markers were up, something that i liked a lot.
Like most other races, the finish line had a timing clock, but unfortunately for all the 5km runners, it was set for when the 10km runners started, which was about a 20 minute difference. This was a bit confusing for me, as i did not know about it. It would’ve been more helpful if they told us about this.
After the race, there were many things to eat such as bagels and fruit, but also, being the Lindsay MILK run, they had chocolate milk, white milk, and even ice cream! This was something i haven’t experienced at a race before, a variety of tasty food after, another thing i really liked about this race.
It was a very competitive race, and in the end, i came 66th out of 319 runners, finishing with a time of 23:52. Not my fastest, but not too bad.
Overall, i really enjoyed the Lindsay Milk Run. There are certainly some things they could improve for next year, but many things that were done really well.
