The Mercedes Benz Oakville 10k occurs in April each year. This was the third instance of the race and my first time running it.
Parking at the start area is limited — shuttle buses were provided from the Bronte Go station which made for easy access to free parking and transportation to the start. Unfortunately, one of the buses had a mechanical problem which took it out of the transportation rotation so race start was delayed by 10-15 mins as there was a backlog of runners at the Go station waiting for transportation to the start line.
It was a cool morning at the start with no indoor facilities so warm gear was necessary prior to race.
The weather was ideal for racing with only a mild breeze. The race route was essentially along the water front but wound through various surrounding communities; predominately flat with a few hills — the largest hill had a water station very inconveniently located about half way up the hill! Not sure why the race organizers positioned it there — would have been better placed just after reaching the top. I had chosen not to use my fuel belt for this race and rely on the water stations — I skipped this one since I did not want to interrupt the hill climb to grab water.
As I approached the finish line I glanced at the time clock and realized this was going to be a PB! But wait, that didn’t make any sense — I had been using my Garmin throughout the race to watch my pace and was no where near PB pace. After crossing the finish line, my watch measured only 9.5k — was the course short by half a k?
I asked a couple other runners in the finish chute and in bag pick-up line and their watches also measured short. While waiting for awards, I heard from another runner in the crowed that it seemed the lead bikes / runners did not take the correct route when leaving the start thereby shortening the course virtually from the beginning — should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque I guess.
Fortunately this was not a goal race for me — I was using it as a training run.
Bag check was quite disorganized so the queue at the pick-up after the race was very very long. It seemed the bags had not been stored by bib number so it was chaos for the volunteers to find the infamous black gym bag among the hundreds of other black bags in the mound. Fortunately for me I came through the finish relatively early so missed the worst of the queue. The race director apologized for this via email following the race and is working to improve for next year.
The highlight of the morning is the draw for the brand new Mercedes! But you have to be at the awards ceremony to win it. Believe it or not, they called the names of three people who weren’t there (sucks to be them!) Finally we had a winner — but no not me.
Even with the challenges noted above I would run this race again. It’s a great little race and the chance to take home a new Mercedes isn’t half bad either!
