As I always do whenever I’m on vacation in another city or country, I found myself a race to run in Los Angeles! The only race that was available during the weekend I was there was the Miles of Music 5K in Studio City.
The course itself was pretty interesting as it took place on CBS Studios’ Backlot. We were running in amongst set pieces that were houses and stores ranging from a sprawling large house, to downtown New York City locales. It was a smaller race too, which was nice since it meant the packs of people weren’t too difficult to get around.
But honestly… all of the interesting points end there as this was a truly terrible race that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.
It started off poorly by them postponing the start time because people were still registering for the race at 8 am (??????). It wasn’t a long postponement, but you can see by my start time below it was 15 minutes after the expected 8 am start.
There were a few uphills which pissed me off, but that’s neither here nor there because the worst part?
This race wasn’t a 5K. It was barely even a 4K.
?????
My Garmin and my phone disagreed on the distance. My Garmin said 3.92 kilometers and my phone said 4.2 kilometers. I asked some other people once I’d finished what they’d recorded for distance and they told me 2.5 miles (which is 4.02k). I originally thought I’d run around the loop wrong (it was a double loop around the course above), but we were told to do it twice and the fact that my distance lined up with other participants indicates to me that it was just measured completely improperly.
Like what the hell happened you guys? It’s a 5K race – that is part of the title of your race – and you came up so short? Did no one measure this a few times? It’s not like you were shy 200 meters… you were missing an ENTIRE KILOMETER. People don’t like signing up for a race only to discover it’s not what they paid for. I’ve tweeted at them and e-mailed them asking what happened, but so far… no response.
I had originally thought I’d be putting out a personal best, but looking at my pace and knowing the course, I know now that there’s no chance I would’ve done so, so I guess I can’t be sad about that. But like… they e-mailed me my time results and it says I finished the race in 21:54. If that were actually accurate I’d be over the damn moon because it would mean I’ve shaved over 4 minutes off my personal best (which is an insane feat). But it’s not a real time because the distance wasn’t right.
What a raging disappointment. Would not recommend this race at all. I’d go so far to say that it’s a waste of time too because I run further in my training runs than I did for this race.
I’ll post my race stats below since I always do, but keep in mind this is all based on a 4K distance.
Race Results
- Finish Time: 21:54
- Pace: 5:35 per kilometer
- Overall placement: 76/471
- Age group placement (Female 31-40 years): 12/69
- Gender placement (F): 29/277
I forget where it happened but here in the states, there was a full marathon (that was supposed to be sanctioned as a Boston qualifier) that they measured wrong! People thought they were completing their first and then realized it was either 24 or 25 miles and those who thought they had qualified for Boston were told it didn’t count. I would have been so angry!! If someone takes on the responsibility of having a race then they need to make sure they understand what it entails from start to finish; measuring being a huge part of that.
If you’re ever looking for a fun half, I did the Rock n Roll series in Philadelphia (granted, 4-5 years ago) but it was so much fun and one of the best organized races I’ve seen from start to finish.
I read about that! What an INSANE experience. I mean a 5K, in the grand scheme of things, is really nothing in terms of distance. If it were a full marathon (or half) I’d be freaking LIVID with rage. Wow. ESPECIALLY if you’re trying to qualify for something. What a massive waste of time. Wow.
I’m always looking for new half marathons to run – thank you for the Rock n Roll suggestion. I’ll definitely look into it! The ones in Toronto get a bit boring over time because I mean… I live here. So I like running distance in another cities for sure.
That’s so frustrating and I’m surprised they were even able to do this. I guess there’s not an overseeing body for all races, but still. It just seems beyond unprofessional.
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They finally responded to my Facebook page to say there was a last minute security concern. I’m not really buying it though. And besides, if that WAS the case, they could’ve at the very least have alerted us to the fact that the race was going to be cut short instead of leaving us wondering if WE screwed up somehow. What a mess.