14 Kilometers Later...

Everywhere I looked, runners jostled each other in the early morning chill at Hyde Park. People from all over the world had flooded into Sydney for the annual City 2 Surf 14K "fun run" and now waited for the the start guns to fire. As we shuffled, the differences between Colorado's Bolder Boulder and this race kept jumping out at me.

• Bolder Boulder: 26+ starting heats based on prior race times and estimated times
• City 2 Surf: 5 starting heats based entirely on completion time in last year's race

• Bolder Boulder: the streets were lined with bands and cheerers- tons of entertainment!
• City 2 Surf: 2 bands composed of senior citizen rockers

• Bolder Boulder: 10K on relatively flat terrain
• City 2 Surf: 14K on hills that would make San Francisco blush

• Bolder Boulder: Freebies! T-shirts, food, drinks, galore!
• City 2 Surf: A free newspaper and bus ride back to the start

• Bolder Boulder: 55,000 registered participants
• City 2 Surf: 70,000 registered participants

Finally, the gun shot for our heat ripped the air...and no one moved. A minute passed...still nothing. People started hopping to see the front. Had that been our group's shot? It had. Slowly, the crowd began to move: waddling forward like so many penguins. It was 5 minutes after the gun shot that I crossed the start line, and then the real fun began!

Even after being part of a 70,000-strong herd of humanity, I have no way to conceptualize that number. I think the human brain starts struggling somewhere around 500 people. All I know is that the crowd never thinned out. I was perpetually dodging walkers and runners and the river of participants always disappeared into the distance. Another runner joked that it was a 16K race with all the weaving factored in.

As with the Bolder Boulder, some people had gone all out for a theme. There were about 20 men painted blue and wearing white undies: smurfs. Some army men carried two kids on stretchers; a group of kids ran as tools - wrenches, pliers, etc. Others wore fruit or fat suits...just general silliness.

In general, I found the race incredibly under-organized; it worked as it was, but could run so much smoother! However, there was a clever aspect of the race that rather impressed me. Runners were told to wear clothes that they didn't want anymore for layers and to simply strip them off as they warmed up. People tore their clothing off as they moved, festooning the streets with jumpers and sweat bands. Girl scouts followed along and collected the clothing then carted it off to charity. And, the lack of freebies meant even more money for charity. I believe the race raised over $1,000,000.00 and was, all in all, a pretty unique experience.

How did it all turn out? I was the 25,917th person to cross the finish line with a time of 84:24. I have yet to decide if this time is a "good time" but, in the moment, simply finishing was everything I could hope for!