Red Brick Run Recap

This race is about 30 years old and is held on the beautiful Miami of Ohio Campus in Oxford Ohio. Although it is an hour away from Cincinnati, it still has the feel of a long drive for a 5K race. The first time that I ran this race was in 1996 and for some reason, I run this race in every even year (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, etc). I continued the trend in 2010. Originally the race was held at 1:30 PM but recently they changed the time to 10:30 AM due to the recent warm April weather. The warmer weather caused the local college male and female spectators to tan themselves on the lawns along the course forcing much leering by passing male and female runners. Leering during a race does not lead to fast race times so they moved it to 10:30 AM.

Since they moved it to 10:30 AM, I have a tendency to be late for the start(remember the hour drive from Cincinnati and it seems like they keep adding more things on US 27 slowing down my drive time even more. I got there just as they were closing registration. They let me fill out a form and off I went. Conditions were sunny but cool.

The course has not changed in the years that I have run it. It features an uphill start by Millett Hall (which I missed some of since I was running late so I went out the sidewalk on Millet to catch up with the other runners). It runs around the Miami of Ohio Campus and you have a downhill finish in front of Millett Hall. I ran it in about 28 minutes but I have to check the results to be sure. Post race ceremony was basic but nice as you had nutrition bars, bananas, water, and sports drink which I believe were courtesy of the local Kroger's. The awards at this race are unique in that you get a red brick for being one the top runners or tops in your age group. Obviously, the bricks would make a great paperweight.

Overall a nice little run with the feel of going to an out of town race. I will probably be back in 2012.