There are plenty of reasons a runner might slow down at the end of a 5K or 10K. A crowded stadium tunnel isn’t supposed to be one of them.
The Houston Astros’ first Race to the Pennant 5K/10K, held on Saturday, May 2, promised runners a fun finish inside the team’s stadium, Daikin Park, plus a commemorative shirt, medal, and access to a postrace party on the concourse.
For a lot of participants, though, the final stretch came with an unexpected feature of waiting an obscenely long time.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the course narrowed as runners approached the inside of Daikin Park, creating a major bottleneck near the warning track and forcing many participants to slow down or stop entirely before reaching the finish. Some participants said the delay added unwanted time to their results, and practicing patience wasn’t exactly supposed to be part of the day’s race plan.
Runners on social media were quick to call out the issue. One commenter guessed that too many people had been allowed to register, writing that once most 5K runners reached the tunnel, it “just got backed up and hardly moved” before people could cross and collect medals.
Others, understandably, were less amused. “…The wait time for the medal was longer than the damn 5k,” one person wrote. Another said the race felt “unorganized” and added, “I couldn’t even run to the finish line!” One participant described being packed in at a standstill like “a bunch of cows,” while another joked that “the tiny medal was the final straw.”
The complaints even went beyond the narrowed finish. Across various posts and comments, runners called out water tables, parking, packet pickup, medal delays, and the general flow of the event. One participant, in the bluntest way possible, captioned their TikTok with: “Bad course, bad finish line, bad water tables, bad parking etc….. I love the Astros and enjoy Methodist hospitals but this is just ewwwww.”
Runner’s World reached out to the Astros for comment about the race logistics but did not receive a response.
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Sean Abrams was the Senior Editor, Growth and Engagement at Men’s Health. He’s a former hip hop dancer who likes long walks on the beach and large glasses of tequila. You can find his previous work at Maxim, Elite Daily, and AskMen.