Cool Night Classic 2012

Last night I took part in the 'Cool Night Classic' fun run. This is a corporate fundraiser that attracted over 5000 people for either a 5 Km run or a 3Km walk

There was a lot of corporate branding, and some companies had teams of up to 200 people taking part. I stood out a little.

The start line was packed and it took 10 minutes or so of patient queuing to get across it after the gun went off

My major worry was being unable to see the ground ahead of me for broken glass, pointy sticks and other such unpleasantness

But once the race got underway I just tried to stay in space. It was hard though - some of the paths were pretty narrow and within 100m there were people walking 3 abreast blocking half of the route. This caused a backwash of runners, and I had to be careful not to get swept off the path and into the gardens at the side which were planted with spiky pointy bushes. The organisers also put on three drinks stations (for a 5km run!) and I had to stay clear of these to avoid stepping on plastic cups.

I had been very nervous before the race because I wasn't sure how the barefoot thing would go down, and there were definitely a couple of double-takes on the starting line, but after a km or so I was able to get into a reasonable rhythm and just focus on staying loose and relaxed and enjoying the run. I think I became a bit of a 'target' for some people after I overtook them and I heard a few comments between runners, but only one guy made a point of telling his mate that 'you'd have to be stupid to run this barefoot' at a volume that I was intended to hear. I'd passed him and he was disappearing off behind me at that point so I wasn't too worried about his expert opinion.

I finished in about 30 minutes (still waiting on the official time) so I'm pretty happy with that - I was basically running at the same pace that I ran with shoes. I'm glad that I knew the course well though , and would have been a lot more wary of running an unknown route that might contain obscured pointiness. 

I'm a bit sore this morning, both underfoot and in my calves & achilles, but it feels like stiffness instead of injury. Although that may change as the day goes on!

Edit - official time was 31min 35s, so a bit slower than my shod pace. Hopefully at the next event I'll get a clearer run!