After being awake from anywhere from 3am to 6am the past 4 days I was getting a bit tired. After finishing my second day fishing I made a few stops for supplies and headed back to my hotel for another rest before the late afternoon race. I had never heard of this event until researching things to do while in Puerto Rico. It is a big race with many world class althletes running as well as thousands of locals, just to say they were there. The hotel owner helped me with the spanish as there was an information sheet handed out at the pre race package pick up event the day before. As there was to be very limited parking people were instructed to take the rail transit to a particular station where there would be several busses waiting to take entrants to the starting area. Once again the hotel owner stepped up and sent one of his employees to lead me to the nearest rail station as I had no idea where it was and was a little tight on time.
He led me to the station where I parked my car in a very packed parking lot and followed the crowd. Bought my ticket and made my way to the walkway where the train would soon arrive. Now I have been on the LRT's in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton etc but the one in San Juan was much larger, more like an actual train.
After about 10-15 minutes we arrived at the station where the busses were waiting. It was very well organised and it didn't take long to be directed to the next empty bus. I ended up sitting next to a local guy maybe 20 yrs old. Although his english wasn't great we had a nice conversation which continued after reaching the starting area. We walked together in the huge crowd and talked about running - it was a good experience for both of us I think. There were well over 10 thousand people registered along with spectators which made for quite the scene. I got in line for the portable toilets for one last pee stop then made my way to the closed highway which is where the race would start from. People were supposed to stage themselves according to their estimated finish time but I think most didn't get the memo (or didn't care). It was pretty obvious many of the entrants were there for the novelty of it more than to race. Countless people were taking pictures which I have never seen before. When I race I carry nothing with me, surely not a camera or cell phone.
There was a helicopter continuously flying overhead taking video and pictures. I saw the video on the news later that evening.
Finally it was almost time for the start. There were a bunch of announcements then the national anthem was played (all in spanish). The gun went and it was literally 3 or 4 minutes before I took a step as I was somewhere in the middle of the pack. Once I crossed the actual start line I was able to start running but the congestion of people made it difficult to keep a pace. This continued for the first few kilometers as the course took us immediately over the 4 lane bridge which was split 2 lanes out and 2 lanes back. It was very hot out probably a little over 80F and the sun was still pounding. The bridge was about 3kms long and I wasn't across it yet when the race leaders started to come by me in the opposite direction. It was shocking to see the pace these guys were going. I was finally able to have a tiny bit of space to run and had a decent pace going. Around the time I came to the end of the bridge on the return side i was getting pretty fatigued. The heat was affecting me for sure and I think I slowed a bit. It was a bit disheartening as we past the finish line on route still having to do another 3kms or so up the road and back. When we made the final u-turn and had the final 1 1/2 km stretch to the finish I was able to suck it up and pick up my pace. In fact the final km was probably the fastest of the 10. I crossed the finish line with the clock reading 1:04 plus seconds (can't remember exactly). I had forgot my watch in the hotel so had no idea what my chip(actual) time was. After the finish line I just walked with the crowd where I was given my finishers medal as well as snacks and drinks. As it was getting close to 7PM I wanted to get back to my hotel before dark I found my way back to the bus area. A line was already forming as the buses hadn't started yet. Thirty minutes later I was pretty happy that I got in line as there were propably 1000 people in line behind me. The buses finally arrived and it wasn't long before I was back on the subway and making my way to my car. Once again I kind of got lost and the 5 minute drive to my hotel turned into 25. Was very beat and it was a relief to have a shower and go have some food. Went back to the nearby bar/restaurant and pounded back 2 huge slices of pizza along with 3 or 4 beers.
I talked to my wife later and they had already posted our times on the website. My chip time was a little under 59 minutes. I had hoped for 56 minutes but the crowd and the heat slowed me down a bit.
Overall it was a fantastic experience and I am happy to say I ran in the "worlds best 10k race" I don't have any pictures of the race although there are plenty on their website. I do have some from the package pickup from the day before so I will post a few even though they are nothing exciting......

Thanks for posting more of your trip, Tim! What a neat experience to run that race. Great pictures!