Reston Perfect 10 Miler - When high school kids organize a race (September 27, 2015)

I am not going to say this race was bad.  As a person who is such a fan of a very particular, and not often available race distance, I don't want to bad mouth a ten-miler. An truly, it wasn't bad.  It was just boring.  They shouldn't play fast and loose with the term perfect because in my mind a perfect course is pretty, or exciting, or something.  This was just a solid ten mile course beginning at a high school and ending at a high school with a tour of the Fairfax suburbs in between.  See the link with the course map: http://www.prraces.com/perfect10/files/2011/02/PRR-Reston-10-Miler-Course-Map1.pdf

There were some notable highlights that did offer some entertainment, or a change of pace.  I fell down twice.  That changed the pace.

The race seemed mostly organized by high school kids, and high school kids were the bulk of the volunteers.  As a result, there were a lot of kids in charge of directing race participants with flags.  It turns out that teenagers like to dance with flags.  Sometimes, in hilarious ways.  The sassy ways I was directed to turn did give me a chuckle. 

I was allowed to listen to music on the run, which isn't always allowed, so that made me happy. 

There was also a lot of high-fiving, and if you don't like high-fiving, I don't understand you.

There was one woman running backwards as a way to encourage her friend who was struggling to run.  I am torn on whether I would find this encouraging.  I have a lot of fast friends.  I prefer them to carry on their way and meet me at the end of the race.  The end of the race cheering is enough support for me.  I would probably find it a bit disheartening if my friend ran the entire ten miles backwards and was still in front of me. Kind of like how I've seen people juggling while they are running a race, or wearing a cumbersome costume.  We get it, you have motor skills.  Some of us are still trying to master lifting our feet off the ground without falling (and are not succeeding).

Now, I will say that high school kids know how to throw a race after party. The baked goods and candy game were on point.  They weren't going to have you just walk away with a banana and some peanut butter and call it a day. They also had good music playing, and the race ended on the high school track, which provided a dance floor for the teens and tweens of Fairfax.

Overall, not a bad race, but the high light was definitely when the race was over and I could meet my friend dear Joanna over at the Reston Town Center for brunch and shopping.  Nothing cures falling on your face twice in front of teenagers (and the immediate high school flashback) like a mimosa and a trip to Sephora.

Other than including a picture of myself and Joanna, I didn't have any other pictures. I decided a good solution to that problem would be to do a Google images search of "what do teenagers like."  I have copied and pasted a random sampling of the results in case you ever asked yourself that same question.