Non Such 10K - Sunday Feb 3 2013 - A review

A nice medal

BB and I had signed up for the Non Such 10km race after I decided I needed an incentive, e.g. a race, to get me out of the house on a cold weekend morning. It's just as well that we had a race booked, as I would never have ventured out of the house that day. The weather was freezing.

I signed up for the race without paying too much attention to the route, (I hate loops!), and without looking at who was organising the race (not that it's usually a big deal). Luckily (or not, as the case may be...) BB does check out all of that stuff, so he cheerfully informed me that a) The race consisted of 4 loops, and that yes, they were indeedy, those same loops that I do two of when I participate in the Non Such Parkrun event. And b) that the race was organised by the same organisation that received some stick for getting the distance wrong on a similar event last year - apparently..

So how did it go ?? I hated, hated, hated the loops. The park is massive, why just run around one small part of it - four times ! I could have stopped in pure anger.. I was so bored after the first two.. Just. Plain. Annoying. When I did some of the Running With David events that were held in the same park, we never looped.

I don't know if the distance was accurate. I do know that right at the end my BB was there cheering me on and I was right outside the mansion house, and I turned back to him and said 'Where's the finish ?' 'It's right there !!' he said. What was my problem ? The problem was, that the person recording the times with the stopwatch was stood in front of the miniscule sign that said 'Finish', so I couldn't actually see it. Great.

Then I walked back to the water station and grabbed some water, and walked back to the tent to queue to get my medal. BB was carrying a clear bag with a leaflet and an apple in it. 'Where's the bag from ?' I asked him. 'Oh, I got that earlier, it was given to me at the end of the race - there's no more left'. 'Oh', I said.. Not that I'm desperate for an apple and a leaflet in a bag, but I don't understand why they didn't have enough for all competitors.. Why give any out at all if you don't have enough to go round ??

I queued for the medal  and t-shirt. Both BB and I asked for a 'Medium' sized t-shirt. BB had already told me not to bother asking for 'Small' as they didn't have any. 'Medium' was fine with me. Incidentally, when BB got home and looked a little closer, he saw that he had been given 'Large'. Again, it's not a big deal. It's a free t-shirt, it's not like we're planning to wear them.

Finally, my biggest whinge about the day, is the way my medal was practically thrown at me without a second glance, a smile, or a well-done, by a man who looked like he would rather be somewhere, anywhere else, rather than handing out medals to people in the cold.  The medals are so lovely too, but it's delivery was just, plain rubbish.

Would I do this race again ? No. There are too many other better organised, better laid out and planned out races, run by friendlier people that I do not need to waste my time and money on this kind of event.