Tonight, I ran my weirdest 5K ever.

I got a late start leaving work. I planned to be walking out, running clothes on, by 5:00. It was more like 5:15 when I left. Normally, that would be fine but the traffic heading into Cambridge was HORRENDOUS.

By the time I arrived at the garage where I was going to park, it was between 6:35 and 6:40. Gun time was 6:30 so the race had already started. Argh!

When I pulled into the garage, the ticket machine wouldn’t give me a ticket and the gate wouldn’t go up either. There were cars behind me in line so I was stuck. I got out of my car, found the office, and told them the ticket machine wasn’t working. The attendant sauntered over to give me a ticket – I felt like he was moving in slow motion but it probably wasn’t as bad as my perception.

I ran to the area where you pick up bibs and shirts and the area was virtually empty. Wow, did the race organizers clear out fast! I managed to find one kind lady who was still there (I wasn’t the only one who got stuck in traffic) and she gave me my bib and found me a shirt. I pinned on my bib with only two pins, held my shirt tight, turned on my wireless earbuds, and sprinted to the start line. It was about 14 minutes after the gun went off.

Now, here’s where things got really interesting. The race course had changed. I’ve run this course more than a dozen times and today was the day they decided to change it.

The change in course wouldn’t have been a big deal except for one small problem – because I and the others were so late, the people who were supposed to stand at the turns to tell us where to go had left! Now what the hell do we do?

I turned left onto Mass Ave which was the way the route used to go. After a few hundred feet, I got the sense that I was going the wrong way (turned out I was right). Then it dawned me – maybe there was a course map on the Summer Classic 5K web site! Low and behold, there it was, right there on my trusty iPhone.

Although holding the iPhone in my hand so that I could refer to the map was a pain, at least I was able to get back on the course. And as the course progressed, there were police officers at the turns who guided us.

As I crossed the finish line at around 44:00 gun time, passing many people who were mostly walking at that point, the announcer called out my name and the town I was from, probably thinking to himself, “Wow, this guy’s time is so bad, he must be a new runner!” It was a little humiliating but funny at the same time.

But all’s well that ends well:

1. When I went to retrieve my car, it only cost me $2 and
2. When I stopped at Chipotle to grab dinner, their cash register wasn’t working so, rather than turning away customers, they were giving everyone their food for free!

So, while it was my weirdest 5K to date, it was still fun and I managed to score a free Chipotle bowl and bag of chips with salsa. What’s better than that?

Late breaking update: apparently, the timing system didn’t record me crossing the start line so my official time was 44:20 (14:16 min/mile pace), making it officially my slowest 5K ever, even slower than my first one back in September 2015. I also finished second to last in my division and 1,700th overall. #ProudRunner #SlowAF #RunningGoals