I scream, you scream, we all scream… about inaccurate mile marker placements! Last Saturday I ran The Scream half marathon which is a downhill race which features just over 2300′ of descent. 

I knew going into the this that it was going to be a rough race, but there was no elevation map to show exactly what I was getting into. While the majority of the race is downhill there are some fairly significant hills to deal with which I definitely wasn’t expecting! The first two miles were on a paved road and then we headed onto the fire road which would be the rest of our race course. By around mile 4, I noticed that my Garmin was significantly off compared to the mile markers (by around .4 or .5 miles). Since I was consistently off by that far, I decided I should stick with the course mile markers – we were in the woods and the road had a lot of switchbacks, so I assumed the Garmin just missed some mileage somewhere (see my notes about the Pittsburgh Marathon where it clocked me at 26.75 miles) – so, on I went comparing my clock time to the course mile markers.

• Mile 1 – 9:10, starting elevation 3808′
• Mile 2 – 9:17, -3′
• Mile 3 – 9:06, -156′
• Mile 4 – 8:43, -210′
• Mile 5 – 9:35, -354′
• Mile 6 – 9:08, -177′
• Mile 7 – 10:21, -96′
• Mile 8 – 8:47, – 395′
• Mile 9 – 10:43, -79′
• Mile 10 – 9:13, -421′
• Mile 11 – 9:40, -288′
• Mile 12 – 10:33, -80′
• Mile 13 – 8:40, -42′ ending elevation: 2301′

I started to struggle a little bit between miles 8-10 because of how steep the descent was. Since we were on a gravel / dirt road, it was only flat in the middle and I know I spent time in the first half of the race running on the incline, so my IT band started to act up a bit by mile 10. By mile 12, I knew I had to get rid of my walk breaks or I wouldn’t be able to finish the race running – it was getting harder and harder to start back up again after my walk breaks without a lot of pain in my knee, so I decided that for the last mile I would just keep running, even if I had to go a little slower. At the mile 12 marker, I was 1:20 ahead of my pace chart, so that gave me almost 10:30 minutes to do 1.1 miles which I figured was very achievable, even if I was slowing down a bit. Instead, as I was coming closer and closer to the 2-hour mark, I didn’t see any sign of the finish – instead, I saw another incline. I kept running and running and running, getting more and more deflated by the fact that not only was I running longer than the 1 mile that I was supposed to have to go, but I was also going to miss the 2 hour mark. Finally, I came around a corner and saw the buses and the 13 mile marker followed quickly by the finish line. 

Pros

• Downhill running means if you’re in half marathon shape, you’ll pretty easily PR. 
• The middle of the mountains in July = good running weather. Even with the rain we had, once we got into the woods, we were sheltered from most of it so it was pleasant running weather.
• Aid stations were spaced out well – one every 2 miles. The stops included water and Gatorade most of the time as well as GU and pretzels at a couple of them. 
• Small runner pool of only 350 people, so there’s not a huge crowd to deal with.
• Free lunch offered at the end of the race (at the area where everyone parked their cars).

Cons

Have you ever run a downhill half marathon? If you’re Garmin starts showing way off from the course mile markers, which do you rely on?

This was my third year running the Bear and I really wanted to break an hour, last year I ran it in 1:05:05 and my first year I ran it in 1:01:27, so I knew I would be close. But, I didn’t exactly train for the over 1500′ elevation gain with all of my other races this year, so by the time I got to mile 4, I had pretty much written off being able to finish in under an hour. This gave me a good excuse to take a few pictures while I was running, which is definitely not something I’ve done the past two years. My Garmin actually had the elevation gain as 1732′ (and an elevation loss of 97′), so I’ll be using those elevation numbers for the mile recaps below.

I did the ROC race last year and had a lot of fun, but as with most obstacle challenges, the entry fee is quite steep, so I did a little research and found out that if you do a volunteer shift for the race, you could run the course after you finished for $5! That’s definitely a win in my book. 

Race morning came and I had volunteered for the 6:00 am to noon time slot so that I could work during the race and then run it as soon as I finished. What I didn’t think about when I registered for my time was that meant I would need to leave my house by 5:00am! I got up around 4:30 and was slow moving, but I got on the road and was headed up to Concord to meet up with our group by 5:45. As I followed my phone to the address given to the volunteers by email the week of the race, I quickly realized that I was in the wrong place… there was no one around! Luckily, I came across a security guard who was able to tell me that the ROC event was not at the Concord Motor Speedway (the address we were given), but at the zMAX Dragway. Technically, the location was listed as the Concord Motor Speedway – zMAX Dragway, but the address given to the volunteers was definitely not the right one. The web page had the correct address listed for participants, so hopefully not too many people ended up at the wrong place. 

But, I figured out where to park (super close to the volunteer tent and start line) and made my way over to where the other volunteers were congregating. The volunteers were told to be there 15 minutes before our scheduled start time, so there were about 20 of us waiting in line by 5:45… and waiting… and waiting. There were ROC officials at the volunteer tent, but they weren’t ready for us yet, so we just stood around until we could sign the paperwork and pick up our water and snacks for the day. We got started through the line a little after 6:00, but our t-shirts weren’t ready, so we had more waiting to do. They got the t-shirts delivered and started handing them out to everyone and told us we had 5 minutes to go change and get back for our assignments for the day. When we got back, some people were given assignments (mostly bag check and registration), but the rest of us continued to wait around. I’m not sure what time we actually got our assignments, but those of us who were working the obstacles stood around for about 2 hours before being transported / told where to go. The first wave of runners started at 8:00 and we didn’t leave the volunteer tent until 7:45! Needless to say, we were all getting very restless having no idea what was going on and being told to arrive well before the workers were even ready for us.

I ended up working on the very last obstacle, the World’s Largest Inflatable Slide and I was the one at the top of the slide hosing it down and telling people when to go. Since I was on the last obstacle, it took about 25-30 minutes for the fastest runners to reach us. By around 9:15, the waves of people became more consistent and it was a ton of fun seeing everyone come through in their costumes and trying to convince people that it wasn’t nearly as scary as it looked. Standing on top of a giant inflatable slide was definitely a leg workout as well as a challenge in balancing. Every time someone started climbing up the stairs, it would shake the whole slide and then when people would jump at the top of the slide, I really had to concentrate on not falling over! 

Eventually, I got a quick break for lunch and then headed back up to the top of the obstacle to finish out my shift. Around 11:45, I was replaced by another volunteer who was working the afternoon shift and I headed back to the volunteer tent to check out and get my wrist band so that I could run the course myself. I made it in time for the noon wave and got up close to the start of the pack of runners – as with any obstacle course, there’s always some that will have a back-up of people waiting to complete the obstacle, so I wanted to get ahead of as many people as possible for as long as I could.

I started off pretty strong, but it was definitely tough running down the long dragway strip in the middle of the day. There weren’t too many people from my heat in front of me, so I kept going as fast as I could and made it to the Gorilla Bars, which I was able to make the whole way across without falling – I was impressed with this since my arms were still a little sore from kickboxing and bowling Thursday night. After that was the World’s Largest Moon Bounce and the Get It Up (And Over) walls and then the one obstacle I failed miserably at: The Jump Balls! Luckily, after that, it was pretty smooth sailing and I was keeping up with a couple of guys through the next few obstacles (Foam of Fury and The Drop), but everybody got stuck at the Tarzan Swing where there was a huge line of people waiting to get across. It took over 5 minutes to get to the front of the line, but the obstacle itself was pretty quick, just having to hold onto the rope to swing across a short padded area. Next up was another new obstacle which was called The Sweeper – the idea was the you would run across the plastic tube and duck under the rotating sweeper before moving on to the other side. I made my first duck, but it was slippery, so I had to just crawl to the other side instead of standing up and continuing my run. This year was my redemption year for the Wrecking Ball obstacle – last year I fell off after about 2 steps because I lost my balance on the tube without even getting close to the wrecking balls, but this year I made it the whole way across! The next obstacle was another new one called Cool Runnings which was basically a water slide you went down on inner tubes and ended up in a couple feet of water. I picked up some really good speed on this obstacle and ended up almost taking out the person in front of me as I barreled into the pool at the end. On the home stretch, we had to go through the Tire Mile and then I was back where I started the day at the World’s Largest Inflatable Slide.

This was my best “5k” time ever! I officially finished in 22:48 which would be a PR by 3:08, except the race was short half a mile! Luckily, I had my Garmin on, so I knew that it was off, but it’s still nice to have an official time in the 22’s! Given my pace, I think I would have finished somewhere around 27 minutes, so not my best, but not bad given my focus on longer races more recently.

The race was held in McAllister Park near the San Antonio airport and it was a nice course, with the race starting at 8:30am. I have a feeling that either the group was not able to use some of the paths that they originally had planned to use or we all missed a turn somewhere that we should have taken. Either way, I enjoyed the course – it was through various parts of the park trails, so a lot of it was shaded, which was really nice considering it was in the high 70’s at 8:30am! 

It was a small race, with only 88 timed finishers (you could choose not to get timed if you didn’t want to). I started out near the front of the pack and was able to count how many women were in front of me / passed me throughout the race. I held the #7 female spot for a while, but somewhere between 1.5 – 2 miles, I was passed by 2 more women, so I ended up as the #9 female, but I was hoping that since there were only 8 women in front of me, I could potentially place in my age group. I ended up finishing #4 in my age group and I wasn’t even close to the woman who came in at #3 – she finished almost 3 minutes ahead of me! So, out of the 8 women in front of me, 3 were in my age group.

Overall, I liked this race and it was fun to do a small race, even if it was short – apparently not everything is bigger in Texas!

Have you ever done a race in Texas or have a race come up short on distance?

I wasn’t sure how this race would go. I haven’t done a 10k race since last November at the James Island Connector (when I was pacing one of my friends in her first 10k) and my fastest 10k was in April 2012 when I almost broke an hour (1:00:30), so I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t do any running between my marathon and this race and only played soccer 3 times. This either meant I would be very rested or completely unprepared. My goal was to run 4 and walk 1 which I thought might be a bit of a stretch since I’ve been training at 2:1 intervals for the last 6 months or so, but I decided I would just go with the flow and see how I felt.

I was happily surprised at how good I felt as I began running and just kept running. In the back of my head, I wanted to break an hour since I’ve gotten so close, but I didn’t want to put too much on that goal and end up disappointed. Of course, I forgot to get my Garmin started early enough, so the race started without my watch starting. My official time was 58:24 and my Garmin hit 6.2 right after I crossed the finish line (57:37 on my Garmin), so I’m guessing I missed a couple tenths of a mile at the beginning. Below is my best guess at splits:

• Mile 1 – 9:25
• Mile 2 – 9:21
• Mile 3 – 9:32
• Mile 4 – 9:41
• Mile 5 – 9:23
• Mile 6 – 9:30
• Last .2 – 7:40