Courir en pays de Grasse 10 km

10th Anniversary Edition – 23 novembre 2008, Grasse, France“Un club, Une course, Une Ville, Une Passion”
(“One club, one course, one city, one passion” – see you can read French!)

[Question to self: Is it over the top to shamelessly advertise athletic achievements on blog? Answer to self: It’s your blog, you can do whatever you want to!]

Ari's Race Results
Champion Chip Finish Time: 42:12
(The Champion Chip is a small computer chip laced onto your shoe that tracks the actual time you cross the start line and finish line – it alleviates previous complaints from runners about the single race clock ---- still used in smaller races – not taking into account the several seconds – and possibly minutes – it takes those in the back of the pack to reach the starting line in a large race. The Chip eliminates the penalty of being a slow runner, or possibly one late to the race and unable to get in front of those slow runners who wiggled their way to front of line inappropriately.)

Overall Place: 379th of 1863 finishers (unfair: Nice-Matin newspaper only published first 150 finishers in today’s edition!)

Gender Place: 32nd Female (519 finishers)

Age Group Place: 11th of 207 (40-49 Veteran/Masters Female)

First Place Age Group Time: 37:36 (American races are more generous to those like me who can no longer compete against 40-somethings – or at least those 40-somethings on the opposite side of 45 – by creating categories in the 5’s; I typically do very well in the 45-49 age group!)

First Place Men’s Masters Age Group Time (for comparison): 31:10 (Men’s Master’s division is extraordinarily competitive! Happy not to be a man at my age – but then that was always the case, I think.)

First Place Men’s Masters Cash Award: 150 Euros (According to race promotional material, first time race awarded cash to Men’s Masters Division top 10 finishers)

First Place Women’s Masters Award: None (No explanation of why Masters Women were not given same honor. Although know for a fact that First Place Woman argued vehemently and received 70 Euros award. You go girl!)

First Place Age Group 50-59 (for comparison): 44:17 (If I were only four years older…not often one wishes that!)

Race Conditions:
Temperature at race time ~ 8 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit); overcast (Frigid! But decided to chuck running tights and go for shorts. Figured I was going to warm up. Unfortunately, Priscilla never did. But she was just standing and watching….)

Race Course:
Out and back (turn at 5K); gradual uphill to turnaround point (rise of 50 meters barely perceptible headed up but feeling of downhill acute on way back)

Race Clothing
Shorts, Barnard long sleeve t-shirt, green and blue bandanna around neck, silver and gold Live Strong Nike Air Pegasus

Race Port-o-Potties
Four. Cannot get over the fact that Europeans appear not to use bathrooms, or that, conversely, Americans overcompensate by providing bathrooms at every opportunity. In a race of a similar size in the US, there would have been a bank of at least 20 port-o-potties, or two banks of 20 in two different spots. Of four set up at this race; only two were open 45 minutes before the race, when a race official noticed (or was alerted) and unlocked other two. Amazing!

Number of Water Stops during Race
2 (at 3 km and 7 km) – Good. Only downside: plastic cups. It was the first time I have been handed a plastic cup in a race. Plastic cups break when you pinch them to create a small siphon to drink from (done to eliminate possibility of inhaling air instead of water), and lose all the water in them, which I discovered at first water stop. American race organizers use paper cups. I think they are more biodegradable. One demerit for the French.

Race Boosters
1 – Priscilla, wearing easy-to-find electric orange field cap, bearing digital camera for excellent race shots (and patiently waited throughout post-race awards ceremony to see if I would win anything, despite rapidly falling body temperature)

Race Booty:
--Two t-shirts, both outlandishly orange, one long-sleeve, one short sleeve (commemorative 10th anniversary T)
--Race Bandanna (in similarly outlandish orange) – sea of orange gave appearance of joviality to race…
--Bottle of no-label perfume (Grasse is the self-promoted Perfume Capital of France, but not sure why perfume maker not promoted…)
--Pen and Key Chain from race promoters
--Three cereal bars picked up from post-race spread
--No hardware; see race results above

Post-Race Spread
--Pound cake
--Raisin bread and other breads
--Sultanas (raisins) and Dried Apricots
--Pieces of chocolate (broken out bars on plastic plates)
--Orange slices (the universal post-athletic event fruit!)
--Orangina, Perrier (good French brands)
--Cereal Bars (no label brands, but good flavors – chocolate and banana, and apple and apricot)
(Similar to traditional American post-race spread, but missing bagels and bananas and endless plastic bottles of water – go Green France!)

Personal Bests
1 – Best 10km race time this year. Other race times: Capitol Hill Classic (18 May) 43:12 (12th woman, 1st 45-49) (flat with one large hill; humid, temps in the high 70s); Lawyers Have Heart 10K (16 June): 44:09 (40th woman, 5th Masters) (flat course, temps in high 70s)