Shattered Dreams

Warning! This post is going to be full of bitching and whining. The Memphis Runners Club puts on a Road Race Series each year starting in July and ending in October. The series consists of:
two 5ks
two 5 milers
two 10 ks
two 10 milers
two half-marathons

I signed up for the whole series two years ago and made it all the way through the first 10 miler before getting injured. I was seriously bummed cause if you run all 10 races, you get a special award at the holiday party in December. You are deemed ROAD WARRIOR. Oh how I wanted to be a road warrior! I eventually got over it and reminded myself that there was always next year. Well...another year went past and I was still dealing with those injuries, so I didn't sign up for the series at all.

As you know, I made my big comeback about a month ago. I've felt good, I'm running again on a consistent basis and I was ready to run the series in its entirety. I told myself that this year, I would fulfill my dream of becoming a road warrior. I wanted it bad.

Race #1 went well...one down and nine to go. Last Sunday was race #2 and at 4:45AM, I woke up due to a HUGE storm with crazy thunder and lightning. So I got out of bed to check the weather only to find flash flood and severe storm warnings. Not good. Next I checked the Memphis Runners website for news of any sort....nothing there. I got back in bed and slept until 6:10 (race began at 7:00). When I woke again...it was worse than before and so I came to the conclusion that it was most definitely cancelled. If it were just rain, I could see it. Races aren't called off due to rain...but I couldn't see the race going on with all the lightning.

So I didn't go.

Big mistake. Later in the day, I saw this on the Memphis Runners website:
Dear Road Race Series Participants: We have had several emails today regarding the RRS 5K. The race was delayed until 8:00 am and we had 454 finishers. MRTC policy is for the RD to determine whether to cancel or to postpone the start. In this case, the race was postponed until the weather had passed. I had a variety of emails, texts, and calls starting at 5:00 am regarding our plans and all were informed that the plan was to run the race as soon as the weather moved through. We didn't get anything on the website since all of those who could do it were out setting up the course. If we had canceled, there would not have been a make-up race as the logistics are too difficult: permits, police, reserving the park, etc. As for the issue of "Road Warriors", the website states: All participants who successfully complete all 10 of the RRS events receive a special "Road Warrior" award at the Holiday Party (1/16/10). Other race times cannot be substituted and there are no make-up races if you are unable to participate in one of the RRS races. I hope this answers all of the questions. If not, please feel free to contact me. Thanks for your understanding. John

Well I think that's bullshit. All they had to do was post a notice on the website. If they had time to email, call, text all those people back, at least one person had time to POST A FREAKING NOTICE ON THE FREAKING WEBSITE. Hell, they could have called me! I was so pissed off...for like a week. Actually I'm still pissed off. I think they definitely should have a make up race, as this is an usual situation. It's not like I was sick or something and asking for a makeup race. Tons of people made the same damn assumption I did. Sure, I should have just gone anyway to check it out. But I didn't and now another year has gone down the drain.