i got your schwaggle right here

so i signed up for schwaggle - one of those limited-time deal websites, this time for fitness-related products and discounted race entry fees.  a few weeks ago, they offered a 5K for cinco de mayo that was pretty darn cheap and not too far away, so i signed up.  it was being run by a personal training facility that had just opened, and they were raising money for the american cancer society.  cool.

while i'm always down for a run that benefits a great cause, this ended up being the most unorganized run i've ever participated in.  i guess i got what i paid for.  there were five different start times - 7:00, 11:00, 1:00, 4:00, and 7:00.  since i had the mommy & me day with the bean in the morning and didn't really want to run at the hottest part of the day, i went with the latest option.

the girls and rock-ell came with me, and when we got to where the run was to begin, it was super confusing.  we didn't see any signs, cones, people - nothing.  luckily, as we parked the car and looked around, we spotted a group of people dressed in running gear getting out of their own car - and they looked as puzzled as we were.  as we chatted, it turned out that we were the only registered runners for this wave - out of the fifty total for the entire day.  geez.

as we started walking towards where the e-mail told us to meet, we ran into a guy lugging a cooler and a bunch of gear, and it turned out that he was the organizer of the run.  if you could call it "organized" by any stretch of the imagination, that is.  this is where the run took place:

this was the view:

and our "course" was marked like so:

we all kinda looked around at each other like, "huh??"  but whatever.  we got our bibs and then the dude was all "uh, i dropped my phone in my car.  do any of you have a stopwatch we can use to keep track of your times?"  yeah.  the teen ended up volunteering her phone, and we gathered at the start line.

the run consisted of two loops around this bike path thing.  it was weird running in the evening, since i'm used to rolling out of bed and doing my run, but it was nice as it cooled down considerably.  we took a quick group shot:

i got one with the girls:

and then we were outta there.  we capped off the day with a stop at the grill 'em all food truck, and that was that.

next time, i'm doing a hell of a lot more research before i sign up for runs i've never heard of.  hmph.