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Road O Cross 2011 Comments and stories are below. (a work in progress)

I have been doing this run for a few years now. The first year I ran it, I remember people complaining that it had gotten "too big" at ~1500 participants. I thought it was great. Recent complaints have even less substance, "you didn't get my time right,"..."I didn't get any beef stew". Wah, wah. But... I do want to echo the comments about guys running in thongs. (I thought it was jock straps. Maybe it was both.) That crosses the line. Like you, I am unsure how you police this. But you put on the best race in the nation, I'm sure you can figure it out.
We try to control it!

My name is Daniel Faas and my number was 2737
I do not appear on the results list. I had my number and my chip on when I finished. I did some looking and found something slightly interesting... I found a guy named Brad Lane with the number 2734 and he finished with pretty much the same time I did, right about 1:30. I don't know if I had the right chip (I just took the one they gave me and didn't think twice), or if something went wrong at the finish.

I had a great time at the run. This will not affect my attitude towards coming back next year, which I almost certainly will. I just would be slightly happier if I was listed.

We will try to figure it out. (this is why we ask people to check there info when they pick it up)

I run a lot of races each year. No other race compares to the complete joy of running through the woods, creeks, and fields at LHF. It is absolutely the funnest race of the year. Great work!
T.W.

This was my second year running, and I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about the great time I had. I had not been feeling well for the past several days before the race and woke up that morning feeling even worse. Standing in the start corral my stomach was cramping down with more strength than I cared to think about. Keep it together for the first five miles but had to resort to a run/walk routine for the last two. Made it across the finish line and got all of five feel past when I just could not hold it down any more. I was on the ground for no more than 20 seconds before I had several of your volunteers on the ground with me helping me in every way they could. It was nice to know that even feeling awful the people where taking time from cheering on the other finishers to help me. One of them helped me to the hot beef stew where it seemed to calm my stomach down.

Once again had a great time, being sick and all. The caring and compassion I received from your people were truly appreciated. I’m looking forward to next year, but hopefully I won’t be adding anything to your course!
B. H.

This is my second year running this race and I love this race! Even better this year than last!

Looking forward to next year already! Thank you living history farms - 8 years +

Thanks again to all the volunteers and workers and runners! Had a great time, yet again. So sad that I'll be all graduated from ISU and won't be around next year.
We had an absolutely wonderful time and will be back next year, 1st timer on
my 71st B-day. Thanks, Roland hofferber
We're glad you had a good birthday!

This is a big race and I do triathlons throughout the year at big races. You guys are top notch and should be proud of this event! I just read your note here, after the race, but wanted to pass on a comment. There were some guys I ended up running near dressed in thong underwear and short T-shirts. I was behind them for a moment and made sure I stayed in front of them through the end of the race. But i could hear comments from the fans near the end of the race. It was totally inappropriate--from the back they looked like they had nothing on at all. I have no problem with you taking a little stronger stand on this kind of dress next year. They were idiots. There are a ton of weird costumes, cross-dressing, speedos only, whatever. No problem. But these guys crossed the line and should have been kicked out. Just an opinion, but with 7500 people, I thought you should be aware. Thanks for a great race--I haven't seen a race on on this scale anywhere in the country, including Ironman, run any better.

We have been and will keep trying to contain this. We really have a question on how to stop it.

More comments on the facebook page.

I know you probably have a ton of these right now, but can you please straighten out the 40-44 yo women's bracket (and also the Master's women's bracket)? #3 runner in 40-44 and #9 in Master's women's (Brad Bruhl) is obviously a male (and also ran in the 2010 race as a man). It's either a guy who signed up incorrectly, or a girl who ran w/ Brad's bib. Either way... Neither are your fault, of course! (But he did finish ahead of me, which GETS me!! :) ).

Thanks for the great race - always fun. And thanks for the extra Runner Stuff water bottle too.

We will try to get all of them straightened out by mid week.

Steve;

This was my first Living History Farms race. I had a great time....the course was fun, parking and registration was smooth...but I have one major complaint. As the race wore on, what kept me going was the thought of a bowl of hot beef stew. I was more than a little bit disappointed to hear "we ran out of stew" as I made my way to the tent. The stew ran out in only 2 hours, 15 minutes. That is unacceptable. Something like the amount of stew shouldn't be hard to calculate especially when the numbers of runners was known well in advance.

It might seem like a small thing, but to me, races where the food and refreshments are not as promised leave me thinking someone dropped the ball and I am not happy about that.

I hope you get this corrected for next year. Having to throw away a few gallons of stew would seem a much better option than telling many people who worked hard all day, "we don't have any stew for you".
M.Y.

This is a real problem that we are trying to figure out. The first year we had 1500 extra servings and some got waisted. This year we had about 6800 finishers and prepared food for 8000. Yes. there were 500 extra servings over and above our advertised max number of entrants.
There are 2 possibilities. One is, over a thousand people were going back for 2 servings or we had a large number of bandits who ran and ate without signing up for the race. I caught and embarassed 2 of these personally.
Last year I published a picture of a bandit and got myself seriously riduculed for "picking on the young man". Out of about 30 people who responded to the posting almost 33% said I was picking on him and that it was our fault for limiting the number of entries and not lettiong him in.

This in no way helps you, but hopefully you can get an idea of what we face in trying to predict this event.

Thank you for the reply! Let me first say overall, I enjoyed this event tremendously. My family has been pushing me (gently) as I've tried to be more active and healthier. In 2008, I weighed 275 lbs...in the last 2.5 years, I've done 25 5k runs, one 4 mile trail run in Nebraska and now I can say I've finished the Living History Farms 7 mile trail race. I'm no speedster obviously, but I do enjoy stepping outside my comfort zone and I've become a little bit addicted to how I feel after I finish something that only a few months ago, people would have been shocked to learn I accomplished. Now I am constantly adding events to my calendar to keep me motivated. I will be anxious to come back to the Living History Farms race in 2012 but it's my hope you can get the food issue resolved.

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