Fun Run?

This past weekend I was down in Kita-Kyushu for a teaching conference. I got an email announcing a fun run on Saturday morning so I decided to participate. When I got there there were about 12 people waiting and only a couple of them looked like runners. The director explained that a young Japanese girl was going to be leading the race because she was the fastest one there. I thought it was possible because there are some very fast Japanese women. But since she didn't even take off her sweats I thought she was being a little presumptuous to think she could stay ahead of all of us even wearing full sweats.
I wan't really sure what this event was. Was it a group run or a race? But when the director announced that there would be prizes for the first and second runners I decided there was some competitive element to it. When the race started two guys, a hippie girl and I moved to the front. The Japanese runner who was supposed to lead the race never was near the lead. Thankfully the race director was leading the race on his bike so we just followed him. The four of us ran together with the director giving us a historical tour of the area as we ran along. We chatted the first half and all stayed together. As we passed the castle a young American guy broke away and put a small gap on us. I figured that was the first indication that we were in a race so I got the Australian guy who was running with me to join me in the pursuit. We caught him pretty quickly and since I was in the lead I decided to try to break away. I got a big gap but unfortunately we had to stop at all lights so every time I got a lead I had to wait at lights and let them catch up. After doing that a couple of times I decided to rejoin the group. With about a half mile to go the Australian man tried to break away and got a big lead in a short distance. Fortunately he too was stopped at the light. I caught up with him and as soon as the light changed I sprinted for all I was worth and managed to win the race though I had to cross the last road as the light was changing. It was kind of a fun event. It was like pretend racing. I am sure that I won't have many more chances in my life to lead a race so I definitely relished the experience.