Rock 'n Roll New Orleans: a miss

It's the first time I've missed this race since Competitor Group bought it 6 or 7 years ago. I can't believe it! The streak is broken!
It's also the first year they added a 10k, of which I was oblivious, much to my dismay. See, I wanted to walk out to St. Charles and catch some of the leaders before church, and I woke up late, threw on a sweatshirt, grabbed coffee, and walked as fast as I could to the turn-around. I was sure I'd missed the leaders. But nothing. Crickets. Finally, the lead car went by, sweeping the course. And more nothing. I pulled out my phone, found the website, and realized that the 10k started first, and the half and full were later by a whole half hour!
So I had some time to walk a bit further up the course. It was perfect running weather, cool and sunny, and I was happy to be out spectating. I knew I couldn't really cheer thanks to some terrible mouth sores.
I guess now is as good a time to tell you as any that I have been really struggling with awful oral ulcers due to my sulfonamide allergy. Ever since my bad reaction in the summer when I took Bactrim post-op, I've dealt with deep, painful ulcers on and under my tongue whenever I'm even slightly exposed to the drug. That's a huge problem, because at work, I'm exposed almost every day! Friday night I had to fill a prescription for Bactrim by myself, so I couldn't have one of my techs fill it - they had gone home. I gloved and wore a mask, but still, I woke up Sunday with a cut-up, bleeding mouth. Misery! I am sure I'll eventually figure this out, but for now, I could barely speak. So I was not actually able to do much cheering at all!
Finally, the men rounded the corner, and I picked out Ben Bruce, who I knew would be racing. He was neck and neck with another guy I didn't recognize; it turned out to be Mike Popejoy, who beat him by half a minute at the finish.

It wasn't long before I saw the women, and I was looking for Tia! I saw her name the week before in our paper's online article. She was listed in the elite field for the race. But first came Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, far ahead of any other women.

Then the pack started to get crowded, and before long, along came Tia, running with an incredibly smooth and long stride! I couldn't really cheer much, but I did get some terrible pictures (I didn't think to turn my auto-HD off, and the sun triggered it - it doesn't work well at all for action shots).

Tia in pink, on the sunny side of St. Charles!

I waited for a few more people I knew running, but since Louisiana Marathon was last week, not that many were racing, plus it just isn't that great to be out on course and not able to cheer or shout. I soon headed back home to get ready for church.
I really wished I was racing today! That beautiful course, the lovely weather (although I bet the full got warm in the sun as time passed), and many of my friends. Ah well, maybe another year.
I noticed that it seemed to be a slow race, despite the perfect conditions, and I think I'm blaming it on race saturation. I feel like we have so many races in our area (including, of course, one last week!) that our local competition is diluted. This year the women's race was won in 3:04, which would have barely gotten you in the top ten in other years. But another factor is the change to Competitor Group's elite program - without that, I don't think we'll a lot of women running in the 2:40's unless they are taking advantage of the course for a PR or a record.
Have you noticed your local races getting faster or slower? What's the cause? What's your theory?