Race Report: Sisters in Motion 5k

I wanted to write this race report while things were still fresh in my mind. I found out about this race through the Black Girls Run! Memphis Facebook page again (side note: The BGR! FB pages by city are a great resource to find out about different races/running events) and signed up. I was not familiar with Sisters in Motion prior to the race but SIMM is a group of African-American women with a shared interest in fitness and fellowship. They volunteer to serve during different races in the city and travel as a group to different half-marathons and marathons around the country. The proceeds from the race go to the Christ Community Health Services Centering Pregnancy Initiative chosen to help reduce the rate of infant mortality in Memphis. If you want to find out more about Sisters in Motion, you can check out their website - Here.

I really like their mission and would like to support the group so it pains me to write a less than stellar review of the race. The race/walk took place in Overton Park in Memphis. I couldn't find a specific location in the park for the starting point on the website but I assumed that it'd be easy to find once I got there. Both my boyfriend and I signed up for the race and arrived at Overton Park around 8:30 am (the race started at 9:00 am). There were a couple of signs that said Sisters in Motion and we saw people walking around with race bibs on but did not see a registration tent or a start line. We kept walking through the park and ran into some people who pointed us to where everything was located. Some signs with big arrows would have been really helpful.

When we finally got to the right place, the energy was GREAT. There was a big picnic pavilion set up with a DJ who was playing Kanye West and that perked me up a little. It was also wonderful to see so many Black women up early on a Saturday morning to run a race. There were also some Black men and women and men of other races.

When I picked up my bib, I noticed that there was no chip to keep my time so I made a mental note to remember to start my watch so that I could get my own result. We edged to the front of the line (not something I would normally do) because it was clear that some people would be running and a good number of people would be walking. I didn't want to waste too much time trying to run in between people to get to a clear place in the front.

My legs felt heavy pretty much from the beginning so I knew it was going to feel like a long 3 miles and decided to run at whatever pace felt comfortable instead of worrying about my exact time. My boyfriend and I kept a pretty steady pace of around 9:00 for the first mile but we both knew there was a problem when we saw the Mile 1 race marker way too early. My watch said we were around .7 at that point. I wasn't sure if my Garmin was messing up, if the marker was in the wrong place or if we had skipped a turn somewhere. We continued to run but hit the marker for mile 2 way too early as well. By the time, the race was "finished" my Garmin said we had only gone 2.5 miles.

This was probably the thing that disappointed and upset me the most about the race. Either the course wasn't marked as well as it should have been and we (along with almost everyone else) cut the course too short or the organizers marked the route short by .60 miles. That is a significant amount in most races but is ESPECIALLY significant when you're only running 3.1 miles. I heard someone say to one of their friends after the race, "You broke your personal record" and I wanted to scream, "You LIE!" but thought that would be inappropriate. For me there is no justification for a race course being over half a mile short. The race cost $25 and at the end of the race there was food, water and you did get a swag bag with a t shirt and a few other things. But the most important aspect of the race - the actual length - was wrong and that really, really bothers me. Also, at the end of the race volunteers were handing out note cards for you to write your name, age group and gender with your bib number. I didn't catch this but my boyfriend said that there were people at the finish line writing down bib #'s and times. I'm guessing they plan on compiling the race results by matching those times with the info on the notecards. I wouldn't have even filled out my card unless my boyfriend had said something to me because there was no indication when it was given to me what it was for. I also can't say I'll trust the results they post for the 2.5 race if that is the method they used to track it.

This is only the 2nd year that Sisters in Motion has hosted this race so I don't want to be too hard on them. I sincerely hope that they address the issues in the future because it definitely has a lot of potential. All of the workers and volunteers were extremely nice with amazing energy and I would like to see them have more success with this race in the future.

- Nash