Take It and Run Thursday: Unconventional Races

This week’s question comes from Kate at 00Kate. She asks:
What’s the most unconventional race you’ve ever run? Have you run a race like North Carolina’s “Take Pride in your Hide” naked race? Does your local running group have “prediction runs” where everyone guesses their finish time, and the winner is the person who has the closest guess? How about a Mud Run? If you could make up a wacky race, what would the twist be?

Um no…there will be no “Pride in your Hide” race for me…not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just wanted to make that clear up front. As for other unconventional races, my track record (pardon the pun) is not so great. I signed up for the Las Vegas Marathon back in 2007 as a rebound effort after the heatfest that was Chicago that year. The Vegas race was to be an attempt at the Guinness Book record for most running Elvis’ (Elvi?) As bad luck would have it, I had to bow out due to ITBS.

The second unconventional run I planned to do was a Jingle Bell 5k where participants ran in Santa suits. Alas I ended up not running in this either-can’t even remember why. Maybe I’ll revisit that one this year. . .although I can think of few things less appealing than breathing hard thru a synthetic beard.

As for the wacky race I’d concoct, I’d do a take off on the Ride & Tie where you, a partner and a horse trade off running and riding. Although my twist would include something else I love: dogs. You’d ride the horse while the other person ran with a dog. Then you’d switch. I’d call it the Woof-Whinney-Run! Lot’s of potential for chaos…and fun too!