5 Borough Series: Queens 10k

The heatwave broke Saturday night, thankfully, giving us some not-as-hot weather to look forward to. I was still sweating just standing, but there was a nice breeze that made it completely bearable. Funny how 108 degrees all week will make 80 feel like spring!

Sadly, I wasn't as much of a fan of the course as I thought I would be. I remember loving the 13.1 Marathon series one because I got to see all the different museums and whatnot, but this time I felt like there was a ton of road miles on the outskirts of the park; the parts of the Half that I distinctively remember disliking actually. There is so much more to the park that I don't think the current course does justice for.

Honestly, I wasn't paying that much attention to the scenery; I had an awesome running partner who I was teaching the ways of the run/walk to. She's been running for awhile now, but continued to get discouraged about long distances. Which, to be honest, if I would've started out on my own, I would've felt the same way. I've been wanting to show her how the run/walk worked for awhile, and this race was finally my chance! With the amount of running she had been doing and knowing that she's around my fast pace (aka NOT my summer pace) I knew there was no way she wouldn't finish the 10k with me and my 1:1s. I'm pretty sure I have created a new running monster :) 

We both saw friends along the course, and again, this is one of my favorite parts about the running community; getting to see your friends! Towards the end, we ran into another friend of mine (who btw also mentioned the 1:1s were a good ratio) and finished the race together. Sarah's speedy self was cheering us on at the finish (which was a great surprise!) and then we got to have brunch. What else could be better?! 

Oh, right. A medal, maybe? Especially when I used the potential of getting one as bait for my friend to run. Not cool, NYRR. 

As we were close to the finish, we heard a runner who was finished the race tell someone that they didn't give out medals this year and I honestly thought he was joking. I even said to him that's not funny. Yea. He wasn't joking. As we got closer we noticed we didn't see any finishers with medals. It really bummed me out. The t-shirt design was perfect for a medal, too!

(source)

Backstory: The 5 borough series was originally a half marathon in each of the boroughs. If you ran all 5, you automatically qualified for the NYCHalf (not to be mistaken for the Manhattan Half). Last year was the first year they gave out medals at the 5 borough series races, hence why I hadn't ever run any of them; It was also the first year the Queens race was a 10k and the Bronx was a 10Miler. Even with the change in distance, those races had medals, too. 

This year, they gave medals at the Brooklyn Half (not sure about the Manhattan one, though) and made a HUGE deal out of it for the series, so I automatically assumed they'd continue to give them at Queens and the rest of the races, for that matter. Why make one borough a bigger deal than the others? You know what they say about assuming, right?

UPDATE: Apparently, it has already been addressed on their facebook:

NYRR, haven't you learned your lesson about changing things last minute on your runners? 

I was looking forward to making this race an annual thing- incentive to race in the summer in a new place! But honestly, for me, it's not worth trekking all the way to Queens just for a 10k that doesn't even give medals. We'll see if they keep their word for next year.  

What do you think about flip-flopping on medals?