Hot Chocolate 15k

Well I certainly had a (hopefully) once in a lifetime race experience this weekend.

See how it looks like I’m yelling in the photo? Well I was. Know what I was yelling? “Worst race EVER!” Because this was. The whole race, pre-race, everything, was such a debacle that I don’t know if I could ever recommend a RAM Racing Event to anyone. Ever.

So what was so bad about it. Well, where do I start? The race was held at National Harbor, which is a new development/shopping center area just down the Potomac river from Washington, DC. Unfortunately, there is only one way in and one way out of National Harbor, which turned out to be a MAJOR problem for getting runners into the area for the race. Did I mention that there were almost 22,000 runners registered for the event, which had a 5k and a 15k component. So, they couldn’t get everyone in, and the traffic backed up for miles and miles onto the DC beltway. Bad news. We were caught in some traffic, but we eventually made it to our parking spot about 30 minutes before the race start. So we (Carlos was running too) hightailed it from the car to the start area. This meant that I (unfortunately) ended up chucking my phone at Noel in a rush to get to the start. This normally wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I was trying to meet up with Kandi, and it turns out we wouldn’t have just 10 minutes to wait. We would have about an hour and 10 minutes.

Yep, you read that right, the race started over an hour late. Standing around in a corral for an hour is a bad thing. It’s a really bad thing when the temperature is in the 30s. I was frozen rock solid by the time the race started, and even then it took us 20 minutes to cross the start line, even though we were supposedly in the third corral (of five). Finally we crossed and the course was jam packed and NARROW. Soon we were running in a single lane of a highway which had traffic in the far left lane. This was an out and back portion of the course, so when we were on our way back we were running directly next to the traffic, which seemed to be mostly big trucks. Very, very bad.

The course finally opened up about 5.5 miles in, as we hit a screaming downhill. I took the opportunity to pick up the pace, since, due to course congestion, I was having a really hard time hitting my pace targets. But soon the course narrowed again, and my pace dropped again. At about this point, I got to one of the few water stations. And guess what? I got to pour my own water!! After searching for a cup!! Shortly after the water stop, we ended up running on what can only be described as a dirt construction lot. No good, especially since no trail running was advertised. We were back on the road soon, but then we were back onto a VERY narrow bike trail that ran along the water. The course was still extremely crowded, so it was so frustrating to hit the 8 mile marker and not be able to pick it up AT ALL.

Finally, with about 3/4 of a mile (or so I thought) to go, we were back on the uphill heading to the finish line, and it cleared out and I was able to pick it up. Unfortunately, the course was short, so I didn’t have quite as much space to kick as I was expecting. But I was glad to be done with this horrible race. I got my water (no volunteers handing that out either) then went to find the rest of the gang. Unfortunately, we were separated for a LONG time, and by the time we finally found each other, I was frozen solid, and now I’m sick. So it’s the bad experience that keeps on giving. My final time was 1.30 and change, which is a PR only because this is the only 15k I’ve ever run. It’s by far one of the slowest races I’ve run this year.

So overall, this was basically the most expensive long run I’ve ever done. And I actually ran it SLOWER than most of my recent LRs. Can I recommend this race? No not to anyone. And I would actually tell others to avoid these Hot Chocolate events. It was that bad. And even though RAM has issued an apology, it seems like they’re not willing to take the blame. Which is really not good.

UPDATED: I’ve decided to publish the email that all participants in the Hot Chocolate 15k/5k received in response to the debacle of a race they held in DC. In the response, the RD says “With that being said, yesterday was a nightmare for us, to say the least. Whether it was auto accidents on the highway causing insane traffic or a terrible choice of venues that couldn’t support this race, there are no excuses, in the end, I am responsible. Again, I am terribly sorry” but then offers a bunch of excuses. See the whole response here.

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