I did a 5K that was 7.4 kilometers

[u/tesseracts]

Every year my college does a small low stakes 5K “fun run” which was actually not fun, and not because it went up and down a bunch of steep hills during a rain storm, but because nobody on the school faculty is capable of basic counting.

First of all despite being labeled a “5K” the official description said it was 2.5 miles. You might have noticed this is significantly less than 5 kilometers, which is 3.1 miles. Insert jokes about Americans not understanding kilometers here.

I showed up a half hour early and I spoke to all the staff and several non staff present, referring to it as a 5K. “Are you doing the 5k? Is there where I sign up for the 5K? When does the 5K start? (There was also inconsistent information about the start time and where to register) Etc. Nobody corrected me and told me it wasn’t actually 5K.

I knew something was wrong when my fitness device said I had travelled 3.5 miles and Google Maps said I still had a mile to go. Frankly my feet were hurting and I was late to something I wanted to do so and there was a nor’easter (storm) happening so I called a couple people to pick me up who didn’t respond. Thankfully the person in charge of the 5K checked up on me and drove me back to campus.

I told her I was kind of mad nobody said it was more than 5 kilometers and she said she warned everyone it was actually 4 miles (6.4 km) and they changed the route last night because the previous route was shorter than 5 kilometers. So apparently this school is capable of charting a course less than 5K or more than 5K but not exactly 5K.

After returning to campus I spoke to a professor who had participated in the race, and she said none of them were warned it was over 5 kilometers and she was kind of mad because it made her late to a lecture and she has arthritis so she can’t push herself too hard.

To make matters worse the race was not even 4 miles like they claimed, it was 4.6 miles or 7.4 kilometers. I double checked by charting the distance using Google Maps.

TLDR I signed up for a 5K which was advertised as actually being 4 kilometers but I was told it was changed last night to be 6.4 kilometers but the actual distance was 7.4 kilometers.

Edit: To all the “it was an extra 10 minutes of running“ people, first of all not everybody is in good enough shape to do a 10 minute mile, second it’s called “mildly infuriating“ not “it ruined my life infuriating.”

[u/Tucancancan]

The NCOs are just hype-men that love you deep down. Now get moving! 

[u/Errrrrrrrrrah → u/Tucancancan]

Go find motivation. it’s that way. Run