Mississauga Desjardins General Insurance 10K

On May 15^th, 2010, the Desjardins General Insurance 10K in Mississauga had more than a few glitches, but otherwise was a fun time.

A fantastic course winding through older neighbourhoods of south Mississauga and along the picturesque waterfront trail was a refreshing change from cityscape roadraces. Perfect temperatures and lots of cheering spectators added to the fun.

Before the fun however, participants (and spectators) had to deal with nightmarish traffic on Cawthra Road. Because of parking snafu’s thanks to construction and other stuff going on in and around the Port Credit facilities, many folks opted to park at the Cawthra Community Centre.

It’s unknown if race organizers just didn’t realize how many would go to the Community Centre, or if they simply had no idea how many people were participating in the race Saturday night, but traffic was backed up on the Cawthra exit ramp to the QEW. It took me more than 30 minutes to travel from the highway exit to the Community Centre, about ¼ of a mile away.

There was no one at the intersection directing traffic, and no one to help in the parking lots either. Parking was a free-for-all, with vehicles having to pull up on medians and boulevards to get a spot.

Shuttles ran pretty much non-stop to get runners to the start line, and even with the steady stream of black and yellow schoolbuses, they ran late and ended up holding the race start for everyone (very nice of them, btw). Being on the last shuttle meant those runners (including my husband and myself) were stuck at the back of the pack.

As for the post-race refreshments, there was water water everywhere, but not a drop of Gatorade to drink (apparently it was only for the course water stations). Bags of Kettle Corn and salted nuts were handed out, a nice change from dry bagels, but none of which I could eat until I’d re-hydrated a bit.

Again, things were a bit unorganized moving participants out of the finish area, with no signs or personnel to direct people to the shuttle buses that would return them to their vehicles. We finally in the general direction of where we suspected the shuttles to be and asked directions just to make sure. We returned to our vehicle late enough that departing traffic wasn’t a problem.

As I’ve already mentioned, the course and spectators were great. However, our experience was marred by the lack of organization and chincy race kit (for more on this kit, see the Swag Bag page). It would have been nice to get something other than a medal and a couple of bags of nuts for my $50 registration fee.

Race rating (out of 10, 10 being super-duper): 5

Likelihood of running this race again: Meh, probably not