Run for the Wild "Race" Report

I put the word race in quotation marks because this was not really a race. In fact, I could only find the word race once in the Bronx Zoo website. "Post-Race Festivities & Earth Expo - showcase for ecofriendly products and information". That was it, not really race

It was different from most races that I have run:

• There were no bibs or race numbers.
• There was no clock.
• There was no baggage check.
• Brutally sharp turns.
  

It had a lot of similarities to a race:

• There was a starting line.
• There were mile markers (woefully off, I could spit from the 3 mile mark to the finish line, but so what.)
  
• There was a course.
  
• It had a finish line.
• There were water stations .
  
• Someone said "go".
• It was a weird distance (3.1 miles).
• There were"Goodie bags" at the finish filled with useless swag.
  
• The biggest similarity to a race was that it was huge, huge, HUGE.
  

Being that I was really only chaperoning my (almost) 9 year old twins, I saw no point in signing up in advance. We got to The Zoo a half hour before the start of the run and they were totally sold out of shirts. They said that they had 2,500 and they were gone 2 hour ago. I heard that there were 3,700 finishers. Huge. New York Road Runner's Club races are caped at 5,000 and sell out. My track clubs races are growing in numbers in ways we can hardy control. The vibe in The Zoo was different than it was last week, there were thousands of fit New Yorkers, to complement the obese tourist families that usually go there.

That said, I can't wait till next year. I hope it has 5,000 participants.

My kids had a great time. We started in the back of the running pack and all we did was pass people for 3.1 miles. Both of them ran every step and zoomed up the hills. Then we spent the rest of the day enjoying The Zoo.

It was really nice to smell worse than most of the animals.

Beautiful.