If you're complaining about me, you're still talking about me!

Today I got my first blog complaint. Kinda. I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little excited. It means people are reading my blog!!

I got an e-mail from a Linda St. Laurent, a representative at Loco Sports, the company who put on the Margaritas 5K race on May 1st. She said she wanted to address some concerns I had about the race. I don’t remember being concerned about anything, but I read on. 

First, do me a favor and (if you haven’t already) check out my race report on the Margaritas 5K to see my thoughts about it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.  Done? K thanks.

Here is the e-mail I received today:

Hi Sara,

Someone passed along to me some comments from your blog regarding the Margaritas 5K race. 
I would like to address some of your concerns.

The Stonyfield 5K was held in conjunction with an Earth Day Fair. Hence all the vendors that were present. 
The race was conducted by LOCO, the fair was hosted by Stonyfield Farms.

There was a start line at the Margaritas race.  The cones were set on either side and there was a blue line connecting the 2.

A PA system was used by the race announcer at the start.  The commands he gave, "on your mark, get set, go" are the standard commands for a road race.

We do not reuse race shirts the next year.  There were only 11 left and most were given to some volunteers.

We take pride in having wonderful volunteers at all of our LOCO races and I am glad you had a good experience with them.

There was plenty of food and water for all runners after the race finished. 
 Margaritas provided a wonderful feast for everyone with music blasting throughout to create a festive atmosphere. 
From your pictures it looks like you had a great time after the race. 
 Sorry you felt "there really wasn't much to it".

Best of luck to you in your training for the triathlon.

Linda St. Laurent 
LOCO Sports

Is it is just me or is that a really passive aggressive e-mail? And slightly defensive? I understand that as a representative of Loco Sports, you want your racers to be happy with everything and you want them to keep coming back. It generates revenue for the company. I get that. But I think this e-mail was a little unnecessary.

I was aware that these were two totally different races, under different hosts and I didn’t expect them to be the same. I mentioned in my race report that having the multiple vendors at the Stonyfield race definitely spoiled me. It was my first 5K, I didn’t know what to expect and they blew me away. Despite the cold and rain, it had an amazing time. In my opinion, it was better than the Margaritas 5K. Loco, please don’t attack me, or feel bad about yourselves, for my opinion. You know the saying: Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

I do, however, apologize to Loco for stating there was no start line. There was definitely a start line. What I meant was there was no mat across the start line to record chip start time like there was for the finish chip time. I thought that was self explanatory in how I described it in my original post. Again, I apologize for the confusion.

I may be blond, but I do realize that “On your mark, get set, go” is the standard phrase for the beginning of a race. Being a pre-school teacher, it’s the standard phrase for the start of almost everything, so I’m pretty familiar with it. I was just rather surprised with the way it was presented by the announcer. Not much warning before go time. Again, my opinion.

I’m glad to hear that you do not re-use race shirts and that the volunteers get to have the leftovers. It’s a fun gift for volunteers, who by the way, I will say again, were amazing. They really were. I even met the race director and she was very nice. If not for the volunteers, these races wouldn’t happen and I’m very grateful for all they do to help out the racers. I thanked many of them for their services along the route. I even got a free hat from one of the volunteers. How cool is that?

I’m glad my pictures were entertaining. I did have a good time. In my opinion, good times are made by who you surround yourself with, not where you are. I was with great people. I had a great time.

See? Great time!

Not to beat a dead horse with a stick or anything, but because this was my second 5K race event, the only thing I had to compare it to was my first 5K race event. So in comparison, the Stonyfield 5K was better than the Margaritas 5K. In my opinion. As far as extras go, Stonyfield was stacked, so there “really wasn’t much to” Margaritas except for a T-shirt and a Mexican meal. Thank you for the meal by the way. But technically, I paid for it. A registration fee of $25 bought it for me.

I’m doing another 5K tomorrow, sponsored by the Junior Aid Society in Marblehead, MA. I’ll let you know how they do how it goes.