The Pumpkinfest 5k Walk That Wasn't

Early last week my injured friend, The Terminator, and I were discussing walking a 5k sometime soon. Emails went back and forth and we narrowed it down to two; a lesser known 5k nearby, the Pumpkinfest 5k, or the Brooksie Way 5k, which is easily over an hour away but a much bigger venue. After hemming and hawing all week we finally decided to keep it a little more local with the forecast calling for craptacular weather over the weekend.

Fast forward to Friday night, Terminator and I decided a celebatory cocktail was in order for my bone stimulator unit finally being approved. After a drink and copious amounts of people watching we decided on the fly to head to Walmart to get some "supplies" for the walk. With an event name like "Pumpkinfest" we thought for sure that dressing up would be a given, seems a reasonable enough assumption right? Now mind you at Walmart anything we were getting was sure to be ridiculous and by the time we left we could barely contain our laughter at what we had decided on to sport the next day...

Pre-Race: I awoke Saturday morning to an overcast sky, light rain, 20 mph winds, and 40*. Double-layering was def going to be the name of the game this morning! Yuck!!! I picked up The Terminator and we headed over to South Lyon, completely oblivious to the cluster of traffic we'd get stuck in. We finally managed to arrive at the school, park and get our packets with approximately 8 minutes to spare and it was only then we realized there was no Starting line to speak of...

Start Corral: As I said there wasn't one. Nor were there any timing chips. I asked the packet pick-up people where the Start was and they had conflicting answers. Eventually we just followed the small group of people heading over to the track. As I did at the Cooley Law 5k, I headed straight to the back where all the other walkers were sure to be. Once in place we snapped a quick pic and made note that we were the ONLY people dressed up. Weird. Then a race official instructed the 75(ish) athlete's assembled that we were to round the track, exit the field, and head towards the main road turning upon arrival... and then he yelled "GO!"

Ready to rock the Halloween Spirit!

The Race: And every single person started running, except us. By the time we had even rounded the track all the runners were out of sight. As we passed a camera lady she said to us, "You know ladies, you might warm up if you ran!" Saying that to two injured runners who would give their right arm to be running, ironically Terminator's right arm is in a sling, it was not really what we wanted to hear. We laughed it off as best we could and kept walking but by the time we made it to the main road there was not a runner in sight, only people lining the streets on both sides for blocks, awaiting the parade. We had only gone maybe a half mile.

Oh well at least we tried, the kids sure loved our get-ups though, or maybe it was just because we gave them candy?

Dressed up like goofballs and freezing, carrying a bucket full of candy to pass out to kids along the route with no clue of the route to begin with (there was no course map on the website), we made the executive decision to throw in the towel. I knew Spike's sister Thor and her family were lined up on the parade route so instead of wandering about aimlessly we started passing out candy and made our way to her to say hi, drink hot chocolate, and watch the parade. There would be no 5k Walk PR today!

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention this?

Post Race: The parade was the quintesstional small town parade and when it was over we could do nothing but laugh at how the day had played out. Back at the car we waved at the Finish Line and made our way back home.

Post Race Thoughts: In hindsight we both agreed we should have opted for the Brooksie Way 5k as it is a very popular race and would definitely have had race walkers. (Not to mention when double checking the Pumpkinfest's website back at home I realized that it did not say anywhere on the site that it was a 5k walk/run. Total FAIL on my part, but it is what it is and at least my race fee went towards a good cause; supporting the Boys & Girls Track and Field Teams.) Next year I'll know better and if you can't laugh at yourself, you're not having any fun right?