Wake Up and Run |
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22 September 2023 - Delémont
Picking up my race bag last night I was disappointed to discover no bib (that thing with a number on it) nor timing chip. Just a polyester t-shirt, a reflective bracelet and a buff in a bag in a reusable shopping bag. I don't need any of these and I left the conference early yesterday to pick them up. And this morning I did another untimed race in the French-speaking world. I'd had high hopes about the "Wake Up and Run" because it started at 5:30 AM. Any race that starts that early has got to be hard core, right? Nope, just a fun run. And a comedy of poor planning it was. At 5:31 we still hadn't started because the guy doing the countdown in the Cour du Château couldn't be heard at the start line. Only when enough people shouted "departi!" do the people in front finally get the message. And with so many people it was more scrum than start. The crowd thinned out after a few blocks though. And then we ran into traffic. Why bother to stop traffic for a race? And to make it even more exciting why not hand out black t-shirt to everyone beforehand. The vast majority of people wore these black race t-shirts. In the dark before dawn. In a town where people were starting to go to work. And the tiny arrows with lights put up to direct us were not that noticeable, so there were people who got off course. I know this because at one point a group of slow people merged into us from a street the the left. At least there was coffee and breakfast at the end. And I can cross another Canton off my list because, unlike the Jura Swiss Trail, this race was actually in Jura.
