I had heard so much positive reviews of "The Chocolate Race" that I knew I had to try it this year.
Firstly when I signed up it did mention that the chocolate was not nut free which I was fine with, I knew I would not have any but a week before the race, the final information was emailed out and they mentioned that they will have peanut butter chocolate at the food area after the race. This gave me an ill feeling. For your info my daughter has a peanut allergy, so this freaked me out a bit. I made sure my daughter wore her purse that had her epi-pens in it and she was instructed not to touch anyone or anything. Her and hubby headed off to the car which was parked not to far away during most of the race and just came back when they knew I would be coming through the finish line. So needless to say I was a bit on edge already for this race.
Secondly Hurricane Irene which was currently hitting New York State was giving us here a nasty wind. This race was partly by the lake and when we hit those areas, wow, the force was pretty hard.
The course was actually a bit challenging, hills, trail, alot of turns, I felt like a snake at times, very narrow course areas at times. I actually had a really good first 6 miles, but at about mile 6 I got a horrible side stitch that I could not get rid of. I had to slow down a bit which I was so not happy about since I was about 2 minutes ahead of my estimated time. I also felt the last 3 miles were challenging with all the walkers of the 5K and 10K that decided to walk 2 or 3 in a row and chit chat. This course area was not very wide and you really had to weave in and out of the walkers.
I was very happy to be approaching the finish line and hubby got a great picture of me on that last half mile on the bridge:
My stats were:
Official Time - 1:29:48 - I had no chip time, not sure why, some people did others didn't but it won't be too far off from that
Gender Rank - 38th (out of 202) Category Rank - 16th (out of 57)
We left as soon as I finished. The lineup for the food was crazy and I saw that it was chocolate croissants, chocolate milk and chocolate truffles. I was soooo craving a banana and bagel. I am not a chocolate lover at all so it was no lose for me and I would not eat that with my daughter around, so the race was a bit disappointing for me. I also felt the actual registration price is really high for a 10 Miler, especially when I won't be enjoying any of the post race goodies.
Will I do this race again? Probably not!
Firstly when I signed up it did mention that the chocolate was not nut free which I was fine with, I knew I would not have any but a week before the race, the final information was emailed out and they mentioned that they will have peanut butter chocolate at the food area after the race. This gave me an ill feeling. For your info my daughter has a peanut allergy, so this freaked me out a bit. I made sure my daughter wore her purse that had her epi-pens in it and she was instructed not to touch anyone or anything. Her and hubby headed off to the car which was parked not to far away during most of the race and just came back when they knew I would be coming through the finish line. So needless to say I was a bit on edge already for this race.
Secondly Hurricane Irene which was currently hitting New York State was giving us here a nasty wind. This race was partly by the lake and when we hit those areas, wow, the force was pretty hard.
The course was actually a bit challenging, hills, trail, alot of turns, I felt like a snake at times, very narrow course areas at times. I actually had a really good first 6 miles, but at about mile 6 I got a horrible side stitch that I could not get rid of. I had to slow down a bit which I was so not happy about since I was about 2 minutes ahead of my estimated time. I also felt the last 3 miles were challenging with all the walkers of the 5K and 10K that decided to walk 2 or 3 in a row and chit chat. This course area was not very wide and you really had to weave in and out of the walkers.
I was very happy to be approaching the finish line and hubby got a great picture of me on that last half mile on the bridge:
Official Time - 1:29:48 - I had no chip time, not sure why, some people did others didn't but it won't be too far off from that
Gender Rank - 38th (out of 202)
Category Rank - 16th (out of 57)
Will I do this race again? Probably not!