Corre Bogota!!

I have ran quite a few races in my lifetime, all different and unique for their own reasons. Upon moving to Bogota, my good friend Sarah and I realized that we had running as one of our commonalities. We tried to find good places to run near where we live, adjusted to running in 9,500-foot altitude together, and tried to find some races here in Bogota. Unfortunately, their races are not posted in an organized manner, so after a year and a half of looking for races, the first race we were able to know about in advance was a Nike.com South American race being run in several South American cities today at the same time. Several of our other friends have taken up running as part of their exercise routine since moving here. So, we all signed up together for this race, knowing it would be fun and not taking it too seriously. Although, we did scope out the course and ran it a few times in advance. We were under the impression that it was a 10K, approximately 6.2 miles, on a 3-loop course.

As the race began today, right from the start the loop course added on an extra 2K. As I usually do when I run a race, I was trying to figure out times for certain distances, etc. while I was running, and realized that we must only be running 2 loops. This dream was shot when the race leaders came sprinting by us on our second loop, finishing their third loop. I was furious at the end of our 2nd loop, when we realized that what we thought was a 10K race was actually over a 12K race. I just thought to myself, only in South America would they change a race course and distance during a race and not let anyone know; talk about messing with your mind. In the end, we all had fun, enjoyed running together and the after-picnic in the park. Running has always been about being flexible, and today I got a good shot of that:)