Corn Maze 5K Race Recap

Living in the midwest means hot summers, bitterly cold winters, zero-hill runs, wide open skies...oh, and corn.  Lots of corn.  My suburban town is hardly rural, but you don't have to drive very far south, west, or north before you start hitting corn fields.  When I heard about a 5K that actually takes place IN A CORN MAZE, I knew I had to be a part of it.  I mean honestly.  How could I miss this???

This morning teacher friend Miss R and I got up way too early only to be greeted by dark skies and cold rain.  Sweet.  Nevertheless, we headed about an hour north (picking up one of my fabulous book club friends on the way--yay for spectators!!) to the race site.  Thankfully, by the time we were lining up at the start, the sky had miraculously cleared and the sun was even shining.  Because this race was in a corn maze, it was obviously pretty unique.  No, we did not have to navigate our way through the maze--thank goodness, or I'm pretty sure we would have gone a lot further than 3 miles!  The maze was HUGE!  The course was clearly marked (for the most part...), and wrong turns were taped off so we didn't get lost.  Phew!  Also, because of the narrow course, runners were started one at a time every 3 seconds.  It's a good thing, too, because otherwise there would have been some SERIOUS congestion.  The course was SUPER winding with tons of SHARP turns.  Man, our ankles and IT bands definitely took a beating!  I could not believe how tough it was to run such a twisty-turny course.  We were exhausted almost immediately!

The course...

Oh the wonderful opportunities for corn-inspired humor...this was only the beginning...

Waiting in line for our single-file start...

Book Club Friend was an excellent spectator.  Since obviously there wasn't any way to spectate along the course, she climbed up in this AMAZING watch tower and took tons of awesome pictures. 

See that tiny speck of purple?  Yeah that's me.  At least I think it is!

There were 3 or 4 random stair bridge things that we had to run over...SURPRISE!  

Definitely a unique race to say the least!

^ This may be my favorite race picture of all time...

 Miss R and I were EXHAUSTED after this race!  I couldn't believe how much tougher it was to run on a winding path than a regular road!  Crazy!  At the end of my race, my garmin only registered a distance of 2.73 miles so either the course was crazy short or it just couldn't keep up with all of the twists and turns.  My guess it a little of both!  Our official finishing time was 32:14, but I really suspect it was a short course...we'll take it though! :)

This probably isn't a race I'll do again, but I'm definitely glad I did it this time.  It was a lot of fun and certainly DIFFERENT!  A great adventure overall!

What is the most unique race you've ever done?  The two Muddy Buddy races I've done were obviously unique, but I think running through a corn maze might even top those...