Am I a rookie or what? You would think that the way I approached yesterday’s Flying Feather, I had never entered a race before!

Mistake #1: My race clothes were not ready in advance. I only air dry my technical fabric clothes. Tuesday evening I put my race clothes in the washer, but completely forgot to get them out to dry. So, Wednesday night (late) it dawned on me that everything I planned to wear was wet – really wet. I put the clothes on hangers and set up a fan. Because they are wicking fabrics, everything was dry. Whew!

Mistake #2: I arrived at the race without my number or my chip! OK, I know you pin your number to your clothes and put your chip on your shoes the night before the race. Because my clothes were still wet, I forgot. Luckily for me, the race staff gave me a new number.

Mistake #3: I left my gym bag at home. Usually, my gym bag is in the car for all local races. I keep Clif Shots, granola bars, an extra shirt, pins, hats and gloves, etc., in my bag at all times. Because my bag was at home, my Spibelt was at home. I LOVE my Spibelt, but especially for cold-weather races. Because it has hooks to hold the race number, you don’t have to put pin holes in your cold-weather jackets. I now have pin holes in my water- and wind-resistant jacket.

Mistake #4: I didn’t go far enough to the back of the starting line. Because of the way the start was set up, people were really spread out and it felt as if we were farther back than we were. We did move up at the last minute to get ahead of a couple families we thought would be slower than us. There ended up being tons of runners behind us! I felt bad. We tried to get over to the side and even walked single file, but it just didn’t help much. We were in the way. (Sorry runners!)

Mistake #5: Tied to number 3, because my gym bag was at home, I had no food in my car for after the race. A granola bar would have been great and the trip to Tim Horton’s on the way home would not have been necessary.

The good news is, I wasn’t wearing a WALK! Magazine jacket (we don’t have them), so no one could tell that rookie was me!

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