Another 5K

A few weeks ago, I did a Google search for 5K runs in North Carolina. I found one about 10 miles from me today. The price was $20.50, which is very reasonable. However, if I wanted a tee shirt and an opportunity to get a medal, I'd have to pay $17 more. No thank you. Typically a shirt and medal option are included in the price. I drove there very early this morning since the run started at 7:30. I got to the place and it was blocked off. They made me park about half a mile away and walk there, really? The map of where we had to run was online. They put the 5K and 10K map together. It was unbelievably confusing. They spewed directions at us right before the run too. Because of course we all memorized them. They had volunteers who talked to each other instead of telling us which way to go. I stuck with one guy so that I wouldn't get lost. The volunteers told us to make a u-turn at the roundabout. Then they told us to do it again. When we finished, the guy came to me and said we did 3.7 miles instead of 3.1. He had one of those navigators on his watch. The course ended with us going up a hill. That wasn't fun either. I ended up getting 7th out of about 90. Normally I finish strong, I couldn't today. One kid passed me at the last second to get 6th. I got 1st in my age group with a time of 29:11. My last 5K was 23:55, but that was a full 5K and this was a lot more. When it was time to receive medals, they didn't give me one because I didn't pay. They made something else as a fake medal and gave it to me. Sorry, it wasn't worth $17 to get a medal. I should stop doing 5Ks because I can never do the course correctly.