Race Recap

Here is a nice article from NOLA.com about the history of the Spillway Classic. I had a lot of fun running it! First, you run across the levy (which is the least fun because after a little hill, you basically run down a mile of flat gravel road- I kept wondering when we would get to the fun stuff!), the you run down a hill into "the gauntlet" which is a giant mud puddle. This year, the gauntlet was a 1 (on a difficulty scale of 1 to 10) because we haven't had a lot of rain. I was told that last year it was a 7! As it was, I actually just ran around the mud because a bunch of people were walking around in the mud, either playing or trying to find their shoes- which the mud is notorious for eating! After the gauntlet, you run through the woods on the actual trail portion of the run. That was really fun! The woods were cool and pretty, and the trail had lots of places to jump over logs and duck under trees. It was also single file, so you had to keep up with the person in front of you, but the pace was generally slow enough that I didn't feel like I was going to trip or get too tired. At the end, you run through spray from fire hoses and cheating (tackling other runners in the puddles created by the spray) is encouraged.
I spend about a month worrying that the weather would be unbearably hot, but we actually had a cool snap yesterday and so it was in the low 80's during the race, which was perfect! I finished in 36:40, which I think isn't too bad given that there were still people finishing at 52 minutes when I left to go home. (There were nearly 2000 people at the race, so it just takes a while to get everyone through.)
Of course, since it is a New Orleans race, there were people in costume! My favorite was a girl in a (short) prom dress and a guy in a suit with the arms cut off the jacket and the pants made into cut off shorts. They were drinking a beer while running. Too funny! There were also guys in the same kind of modified suits carrying briefcases, as well as a guy dressed up like Joe dirt.
My only regret about the Spillway Classic is that I ran it by myself. I think it would be really fun with a group of people and I will definitely try to get people together to run it next year!