Wahoo's 5k in Costa Mesa

Today was the OC Marathon/Wahoo’s 5k in Costa Mesa at the Orange County Fairgrounds. The five of us (my mom, dad, Ally, Bach, and I) arrived at the fairgrounds just after 7am, and I had already picked up our race bibs the day before so we just had to find the start. The race started right at 7:30am. There were lots of walkers and small kids to dodge right at the beginning and my dad zoomed ahead with me right behind him, and Ally not too far after. I definitely felt like I hadn’t trained enough, but I felt like I was running strong and was just crossing my fingers that I could maintain the pace. My mile 1 split was 8:11, and I caught up to my dad by the water station just before mile 2, where we were at 16:00. It was the perfect pace to finish at 24:00-24:30, which would be a huge PR (personal record) for me. We turned back onto the fairgrounds through the parking lots and all of a sudden we were approaching the crowds and passed by the mile 3 marker. I looked down at my watch and I knew I hadn’t run 3 miles yet, so I figured the marker was in the wrong spot and kept my pace, but my dad started sprinting ahead. Then before I know it we turned a corner and we’re crossing the finish line. I looked down at my watch to see 21:52 and I couldn’t be happy and relieved that the race was over because I was in shock wondering where the rest of the race was. There was no way that I ran my last mile in just over 5 minutes!! I would love to be able to run that time, but believe me, I did not. Soon enough Ally came up behind us just as pissed as I was. Both of us were on our way to an awesome PR but we weren’t given that opportunity! We looked in vain for someone we might have been able to talk to about it and verify the course distance and then got our freebies from the race expo (fish tacos from Wahoo’s, sports drinks and coconut water, Clif bars).

When I got home I checked the OC Marathon/5k website to see if there was any mention of the exact distance, but it said 3.1mi like it’s supposed to be. I looked at the picture of the course course map, and I noticed that there’s a loop around the Pacific Amphitheatre that we completely missed. Results are posted on the site, and if they are real 5k times then there were some 2012 American records set today (which I doubt) if you compare the times with USA Track and Field. This means that the frontrunners and everyone behind them all went the wrong way, so whoever was leading the first place runner screwed up! On the OC Wahoo’s 5k facebook page there are multiple runners reporting that they clocked around 2.7 miles for the race and they are angry too. Thankfully officials commented on the page and said that they are looking into it and that they will be contacting those they were responding to. Does that mean they’ll contact everyone? There’s really nothing they can do besides email an apology, they would never issue a refund.

So our “2.7mi” official race times are:

Dave Heraper                    21:44

Lizzie Heraper                    21:49

Ally Heraper                       23:16

How I rate the Wahoo's 5K:

Pre-race (packet pick up, registration): C inconvenient because you can't get your race bib the morning of, and you have to pay for parking

Course layout: B+ good, enough turns to keep it interesting

Course maintenance: F horrible! at minimum you have to be able to direct runners along the right path to complete the course!

Post race: B- the finishing chute was organized for handing out medals, water, snacks, and there were a decent amount of vendors and bands. Minus points for having more vendors selling items than normal, rather than giving out free samples or information.

Overall: D-- the fact that we didn't complete a 5k trumps everything. Not planning on running the 5k next year!