Category: 14in14

Race #4: Run the Bluegrass half marathon

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Run the Bluegrass half marathon is advertised as America’s Prettiest Half Marathon and even with the rainy weather we had last weekend, it was definitely some beautiful countryside, though it was definitely not a flat race! 


My goal for this race was to use it as a training run, so I stuck with my 2 minutes running, 1 minute walking throughout the entire race, though I did adjust a little at the very end. The race started at 9:00, so I got to the parking lot around 7:00 to make sure I had enough time to get my mileage in before heading back to the start line. When I was planning my route, I figured I would just run the beginning part of the race course and then double-back to the start line. Unfortunately, it was a little confusing with all of the minor side-roads and horse barns, so I made a short loop of a little less than 2 miles before heading back out and finally finding the race course (and thus the roads out of the compound). I found the 1 mile marker and decided to head off-course a little on a side road to avoid the giant hill in front of me. Little did I know that was just a taste of what was to come! The weather was beautiful until about 8:30, so I had a great first few miles and even got to make friends with a horse who was enjoying her breakfast before the rain started. 









Mile 1 – 12:31 
Mile 2 – 12:57 
Mile 3 – 11:45 
Mile 4 – 12:07 
Mile 5 – 12:48 
Mile 6 – 11:35 
Mile 7 – 12:27 

Average pace: 12:19 

It started to get misty and lightly starting to rain around 8:30 or 8:45, just as everyone was gathering for the start of the race. I was able to find someone to take a picture of me in my race outfit and then I got into my corral. There were a few minutes between each wave and as we got closer to the front, we could see a woman dressed in a beautiful gown cheering everyone on as they approached the start line – she must have been freezing! There was great energy at the start line and the corrals moved quickly through the start line and then we were off! 


Mile 8 – 12:01
Mile 9 – 11:21 
Mile 10 – 12:27 
Mile 11 – 11:56 
Mile 12 – 12:07 
Mile 13 – 14:07 <– bathroom break 

Average pace – 12:18 

I was feeling really good through the first half of the race and while there were definitely some tough hills, I just tried to coordinate my walk breaks to coincide with at least a little bit of the uphill portion. Because there were so many rolling hills, I definitely had to adjust my ratio so that I wouldn’t just run all of the uphills and walk all of the downhills. 


Mile 14 – 12:04 
Mile 15 – 11:10 
Mile 16 – 12:06 
Mile 17 – 11:08 
Mile 18 – 12:17 
Mile 19 – 11:03 
Mile 20 – 10:44 

Average pace – 11:30 

Official time – 2:35:58 

The last picture is of Manchester Farm which is apparently the most photographed barn in all of Kentucky – and now I’ve got my own picture of it! I felt really good throughout the race and ran by feel most of the race, not paying too much attention to my watch. I started off my race in between the 2:30 and 2:45 pace groups. While I was on my bathroom break I got passed by the 2:45 pace leader, but I kept her in view and pretty quickly passed that group. I finished only 2 seconds slower than my very first half marathon 1.5 years ago and this one was miles 7-20 of my training run! 

There were only a couple of negatives about this race, some of which are unavoidable:

  • Not many spectators on the course – I didn’t mind this too much and I wasn’t really expecting any given that we were running through Kentucky farmland. However, there were quite a few bands playing near the water stops and there was even one water stop which included beer probably close to mile 11.
  • Race Expo was a little confusing – you picked up your bib at the beginning and they told us to pick up our shirts at the end… but you had to walk past the booth selling the exact same shirts before you got to the booth that was giving away the free race shirts – definitely confusing. 
  • Fellow runner’s etiquette – there were a lot of times in this race when I’d get behind 3 or 4 people walking side-by-side in the middle of a two-lane country road. I’m always surprised at how oblivious other people are to those around them and don’t seem to care how their actions may be affecting others (in races and in everyday life). It’s definitely frustrating to be running your own pace and come up behind a group that isn’t paying attention to anything but themselves. I definitely wasn’t expecting this with barely over 2500 people running the half marathon. In a race with 20,000 people, I know I’m always going to be in a crowd, but this was a little disappointing. 

Overall, the race was good and I’d definitely consider doing it again (if it was closer to home!) – the medal is a very nice and heavy design that features Zenyatta, Keeneland’s iconic Rolex Clock and the Manchester Farm I mentioned earlier. My understanding is that each year they feature a different famous horse, so you could run it every year and get a different medal. 

Did you race in the rainy weather last weekend? 

Spartan Sprint Race Pictures

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I finally got around to looking for my Spartan Sprint pictures from the race I did. Luckily, the friend I was running with did not lose his bib, so I was able to look up his bib number and find my pictures. You definitely get the idea of how muddy the race is when you look at these pictures! 

Keep in mind, the earliest pictures of me were after I had already fallen into the muddy water on obstacle #3, so I was definitely more covered in mud than some of the other participants.

Obstacle #8 – Barb Wire Crawl

Look, I found my race bib – I better carry it with me under the barbed wire!




Obstacle # 9 – Sandbag Carry




Obstacle #18 – Fire Jump

What I didn’t know until after I finished is that my friend decided to stop to take advantage of the warmth from the fire pit as I was jumping over it! 




Free race pictures has to be one of the best perks a race can offer, especially when they capture action shots like these!!

Race #3: Spartan Sprint

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This is going to be a long one – there’s so much to try to explain about the race, the obstacles and, of course, how I did on the 4.8 mile journey that included 19 obstacles, 50 degree temperatures, wind, rain and lots and lots of mud! 

I ran the race with one of my soccer buddies and neither of us had done any true training for this particular type of race and as race day was getting closer, I definitely thought I should have been working on my upper body strength (I was right), but I didn’t really do anything about it – I’ve been focused on my upcoming marathon, so my only goal for this race was to get through it without any major injuries. One of the unique aspects of the Spartan races is that you are not allowed to know what obstacles are coming ahead of time – there is no race map and while you can certainly find others who have written about these types of events, a lot of the obstacles are based on the terrain that’s available at each venue, so every race is different. Luckily, I had some inside information because I knew someone who was running in the race on Saturday and she was willing to give me the scoop. My main concern was having to swim – I’m not a good swimmer – so when I heard there was some water on the course, but it was only about waist high, I was definitely excited!

Saturday in Charlotte was beautiful in the low 70’s and sunny. Sunday, on the other hand was a major tease – we got to the race around 9:00am and got checked in, got our gear and headed back to the car to get sunscreen and the sun was getting really warm and it was only calling for 30% chance of rain – just enough time for us to make some poor clothing decisions. We both decided to forgo the long-sleeve shirts that we were wearing (it was getting hot in the sun) and just run in shorts and a t-shirt. By the time we were back to the starting corral a little after 10:00, we could see the dark clouds in the distance and the wind had started to pick up… oh well, we’d be running soon, so we figured we’d get warmer. 

As with most races, there was a fair amount of running in before you got to the first obstacle and before we hit obstacle #3, we had already hit the 1 mile mark.

Obstacles 
  1. Under-Over-Under-Over-Under: just what it sounds like – you go under the first set of boards, over the second, etc. 
  2. Over-Under-Through: similar to obstacle #1, with this one, there are only 3 and there’s an opening in the middle of the last one that you go through.
  3. Rope Climb: just like the rope climb in gym class, except to get to the ropes, you have to climb into a waist-deep pit of water. There were a lot of people slowly making their way up the ropes and I headed to a free one in the second row. It was slow going for me, but I made it up to the next to last knot when my height became a major disadvantage for me – I was standing on one knot, but couldn’t reach the next knot up in order to stand on it and pull myself up to reach the bell at the very top. I failed on my first two attempts at reaching the bell and my friend (who had already finished the obstacle by then) and the volunteer running the event were encouraging me because I was so close to reaching the bell! I knew I only had one more try left in me before I was going to have to give up – my arms were starting to give out on me by then, so I went for the bell and the next thing I know, I’m in the water! I guess as I was reaching for the bell, I lost my footing / grip on the rope and fell back into the water. Luckily, it was deep enough that I didn’t hurt anything and was easily able to stand back up to move on to do my burpees (punishment for not completing the obstacle). I did, however, lose my race headband somewhere in the murky waters beneath the ropes.
  4. Inverted Wall: this obstacle was a wall where you had to jump up to the top of the wall and pull yourself up to slide down the back. I was still trying to catch my breath from the unexpected trip into the water, so I told my teammate to go ahead while I did my burpees for the rope climb and the inverted wall. I had zero arm strength left and knew that I wasn’t ready to try another pure arm obstacle yet.
  5. Bridge: this one was very easy – they had 2 x 4’s set up to create a bridge over the entrance into the main festival areas so that you were walking 20′ above those who were coming into the race. The only potential challenge with this one was if you were concerned about the height and making sure you didn’t slip with all the mud you had accumulated.
  6. Traverse Walls: this was a vertical wall that had a bunch of small boards situated like a climbing wall – you had to get from one side to the other without touching the ground and you only had one try. I didn’t make it past the first set – another set of burpees for me!
  7. Herc Hoist: the women had to lift a 60lb sandbag up to the top of a pulley and then slowly lower it back down. If you let it drop (even if you got it the whole way to the top) you had to do burpees again. Luckily, I was able to use my whole body to get it to the top and lower it back down again. The guys had to lift 90lb bags.
  8. Barb Wire Crawl: this was definitely the longest obstacle! I don’t know how long we had to crawl, but it took at least 10 minutes to get from one side to the other, if not longer and that was even being able to constantly move forward. This was really where you got completely covered in mud. This is also where I lost my bib – at one point I took a quick break to look back for my teammate and realized that I had lost my bib, so I picked up the one closest to me (lots of people lost their bibs in this section) and decided that was going to be mine regardless of whether or not it was actually my number. I had already lost my headband, I wasn’t going home without a bib! At some point during the crawl, I must have lifted my head up too far, because I remember hitting the barbed wire, but I didn’t really think anything of it and I was covered in mud, so I didn’t notice it, but once I finally got cleaned up at home, I had a nice scratch right across my forehead!
  9. Sandbag Carry: again, the men and women had different weights to carry, though I’m not sure how heavy they were – you had to take the sandbag down the hill and then back up the other side. At the bottom of the hill there was an automatic camera set up to take pictures as people crossed the path, so I should have a picture of that coming soon (woo free race pictures!).
  10. Tractor Pull: similar to the sandbag carry, but this was a concrete block that had a metal chain around it and you had to drag it down a path and then back up the other side
  11. Wall Climb: not a chance! There was an 8′ wall followed by a 9′ wall that you had to climb up & over. More burpees for me!
  12. Tire Drag: there were tires on ropes that you had to pull the rope toward you until the tire hit the marker, then drag the tire back to the starting point. This one definitely took me awhile, but I got it done.
  13. Up & Over x 3: I’m not sure of the official title of this obstacle, but it was basically a waist-deep water / mud pit followed by a several foot high pile of mud with three of these in a row, so you’d go into the water, walk to the other side and climb up onto the mud pit, then slide down into the water and do it all over again. 
  14. Rock Carry: I think the rocks were about 50 lbs, but they looked like medicine balls and I couldn’t even get my arms around it to try to lift it up, so more burpees for me (seeing a pattern yet?)
  15. Spear Throw: this one was tough – you got to preview this obstacle earlier as you passed it after doing the Tractor Pull and almost everyone was doing burpees. The reason is that you only have one shot to throw the spear into the hay bail and have it stick or you have to do burpees – definitely more burpees for me.
  16. Underwater Wall: this was a wall built over a mud / water pit that you had to go under to get to the other side. Nothing too difficult, just muddy.
  17. Slip Wall: immediately after coming out of the water, there was an incline wall with a rope – you had to use the rope to climb to the top and get to the other side. I’ve seen other people write about this obstacle saying that it’s usually greased with soap or some other type of substance to make it really slippery, but I was just ready to be done and I definitely didn’t want to fall back down into the water, so I did my burpees and moved on.
  18. Fire Jump: super easy, jump 3 feet off the ground above a small fire
  19. Gladiator Pit: 4 guys had the pupil sticks and you had to work your way through them to get to the finish line. I didn’t have any trouble with this one, but I’ve heard they can be more vicious with some people (broken noses, etc.). 
I survived the race and though my muscles still hurt today, I think it was a fun race. I definitely did not prepare enough for the race to make it through like I would have wanted to and the combination of failing so early on an obstacle and the cold weather made me more conservative on some obstacles than I would have otherwise been, but my goal was to make it through the race uninjured and I can say I successfully completed that goal! 

As I mentioned earlier, one of the perks of the Spartan Race is that you get free picture downloads once they are ready, so I’m hoping by next week I will have a few more pictures to share of the race, though it may take me awhile to find mine since I am anticipating having to search through the “unidentified” pictures to find myself after having lost my numbered headband so early in the race followed quickly by my bib.

Have you ever done a Spartan Race or other mud / obstacle race? Did you like it? Would you do it again?

Race #2: Color Me Green 5k

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Today was my second race of the year and my first trail race. It was an untimed event, but I think I finished in about 31 minutes (about a 10:00 pace). This was my second year doing this race at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, but they changed the course this year and it was much more conducive to the amount of people who were running it. 

The beginning of the race started on a large dirt road so that it was easy to pass people and get into your own running pace. Last year we went almost immediately into the woods onto a single track course, so it was very crowded and you just had to hope that the people in front of you didn’t plan to walk the entire course. We did eventually end up in the middle of the woods, but the trail was larger and overall it was a much better trail for the amount of people who came out. 

At the start line, there were green smoke bombs that went off to start the race and there was a group of people throwing green corn starch onto everyone. Throughout the woods, there were several more of these stations where people would throw color onto you / in the air / everywhere! There was a contest for “greenest” and “cleanest” and I definitely wasn’t going to win anything in the “cleanest” category, though my back didn’t get nearly as much color on it as my front. 

Because of the getting covered in green, I didn’t bring my phone or Garmin to track my time, so I just ran at a pace that felt comfortable and asked someone what time it was when I finished the race. I finished at 10:34, so if the race started on time, it took me about 34 minutes to finish. Later, I realized that there was an actual race timer hanging above the finish line, so I was able to compare the current time to the race timer and realized that the race timer was 3 minutes behind actual time, so I estimate I finished in about 31 minutes. Next time I’ll know to keep an eye out for the race timer, even if it is an “untimed” race! 

The race start at 10:00 and there were other festivities going on throughout the day, including coloring the river green at 1:00. After I finished the race, I just settled on the bank to watch the canoes and rafts come down one of the sets of rapids. There were a ton of people on the river today and it was beautiful with temperatures hitting around 70. Overall, a perfect day for a race!

Quote of the day: “You got it girl – you got blasted!” – some guy who saw me covered in green after the race

Did you do any St. Patrick’s Day themed races?

Ragnar Relay – Key West part III

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Check out part I and part II here

As we were preparing for our last legs of the relay race, we knew Van 1 would have a rough morning. They started their last legs around 8:30am (about 2 hours behind original projections) and they had 33 miles to cover before we would start our legs, including two runners with 9.5 mile legs – talk about rough! Our longest leg during the heat of the day was my 8 miler the day before. Luckily, our team was able to camp out at another school, grab some food and take advantage of the nice weather to get in another nap. As we expected, the other team struggled as much as we did with the heat (low 80’s), so our van started about 3 hours behind schedule. Our goal for the day was just to make sure that everyone stayed safe and would be able to enjoy our time in Key West. 

I had the shortest leg of our van for this portion, with only 1.8 miles to cover, so around 3:15, I started my last leg of the race with the temperature hovering around 82.

  • Mile 1 – 10:12
  • Last .77 – 9:21
I felt really good during this leg. I kept up the 3:1 ratio again and was even able to get 1 kill, bringing my total up to 13 (6 in both of my other legs). 

My three legs totaled 15.9 miles, with an average of 10:22 pace. Considering I’ve been focusing on longer, slower runs, I’m really happy with that pace and it turned out to be a lot faster than I felt when I was actually doing the runs! 

Our last runner had 5 miles to get to the finish line and we almost missed being able to cross the finish with him! As we got into Key West, we were trying to find parking and ended up having to circle the block to be able to get into the parking area – which lead to an unfortunate incident where we ran over a chicken that was being chased by a dog into the middle of the street (roosters & chickens roam free in Key West). After all of the chaos, we were finally able to park and hurry to get to the finish line to await our runner. We only had to wait about 2 minutes before we saw our runner coming in and we all finished together! Ragnar provided us with the awesome photos below for free (who doesn’t love free race pictures)! 

Even though we finished about 3.5 hours after we expected to, our team had a ton of fun and we’ve already started discussing what our next relay should be!

Have you ever done a relay race? Does my experience entice you to try one or scare you off altogether? 

Ragnar Relay – Key West part II

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Check out part I here


When we finished leg #12, we decided to try to find a grocery store on our way to the next exchange zone. While we were there, we ran into another team, Running Wild, who helped us decorate our very plain, though easily findable, red van (98% of the other vans were white). Their dinosaur inspired us to find our own markers to keep track of the legs we ran as well as our kills. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, kills are counted when you pass a runner from another team.  We didn’t end up finishing our decorations, but we did keep track of the kills for each of our Van 2 members and it added up to 86! Most of the teams had at least partially decorated vans and at each major exchange zone, they would spend time “tagging” other vans. A few, like our grocery store friends, would tag other vans with markers, but a lot of teams had magnets that they would put on other vans. One of our teammates actually had some magnets made up for our team as well (that’s the little white circle in the middle of the dinosaur tag) which we were able to put on other vans. Here’s a few of the vans that we saw on the trip:

  • Top left: We ran with your mom last night – Your mom has skillz
  • Top right: Beach slapped – Olympic jokes are Sochiesey
  • Middle: Jurassic Parkour – the front of their van had a city on it with magnetic dinosaurs
  • Bottom: our van after getting tagged and posting our kills after our first set of legs



My second leg was originally supposed to start around 1:30am, but with the heat we ran in during our first legs and Van 1’s second legs, we ended up a bit behind our original schedule. With the extra time, I was able to get dinner at the school that was hosting us at exchange zone 18 followed by about an hour’s nap on the grass and even a shower! An hour isn’t a lot of time, but some of my teammates only got about 10-15 minutes at a time, so I’m definitely grateful for the sleep I was able to get. 

Luckily after the sun went down, it did cool down a bit, but it was still 75° when I started leg #20 around 3:15am. My goal for this leg was to keep a 3:1 run / walk ratio, and I did much better at keeping this pace throughout the 6.2 miles. 

  • Mile 1 – 9:53
  • Mile 2 – 10:17
  • Mile 3 – 9:25
  • Mile 4 – 10:38 
  • Mile 5 – 9:40
  • Mile 6 – 10:09
  • Last .15 – 7:47
I love the overnight portion of these relay races – there’s nothing like being on a course in the middle of the night and while I couldn’t see any of the water as I was going over the bridges, the stars were amazing! The highlight of this portion of my leg was seeing Ragnar, Ruh Roh! (team #96) with The Mystery Machine (their van) parked beside the road blasting music, projecting disco lights into the trees and all of their team members outside dancing – it was a great inspiration to keep running. During one of my walk breaks, I came across another team who told me “Don’t walk in the dark” to which I responded “Yeah, you never know who you’ll find!” 

Running in the dark this time was much less creepy than during the Tuna Run – we were in a more residential area and there were no dogs / coyotes howling during my run! I did get a little spooked by what I thought was a guy standing beside the road at one point, but as I got closer, I realized it was a manatee mailbox holder (still a little disturbing in the daylight). 

I felt really good when I finished my run, but I was definitely tired. As we were heading to the next exchange zone (about 8 miles away), I fell asleep riding shotgun and then once we got to the exchange zone, I jumped into the back seat to grab some more sleep, which turned out to be a bad move. I woke up as the last runner in our van was starting leg #24, so I probably slept for about 2 hours, but I was disoriented when I woke up. I grabbed a Clif Bar because I hadn’t eaten anything in the last 12 hours and almost immediately started to feel nauseous. I think the problem was not eating after I ran and not staying hydrated enough – after staying in the shade and drinking 2 bottles of water, I felt much better. That’s definitely something I’ll have to keep in mind for the next time I try something like this – staying well hydrated has never been a strength of mine, so with the heat, it was definitely something I should have been paying more attention to.

Tune in tomorrow for part III.

Ragnar Relay – Key West part I

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Our team flew into Miami on Thursday, February 6 – most of our team was coming from Charlotte, but we also had team members flying in from New York City, Chicago and Louisville. For the most part, it was an uneventful trip into Miami, with the exception of our team member, Craig, who flew into Fort Lauderdale and took the train to Miami. He was delayed when there was a shooting at one of the train stations. Luckily, he made it to us safe and sound and we were able to head out for a team dinner.

I was in Van 2, so we were able to sleep in on Friday morning while Van 1 headed to the start line around 6:00am for a 7:30 start time. One of the guys on our team put together a spreadsheet so that we could track how everyone was doing on their legs and know when to expect them at the major exchange zones. Van 1 finished their legs (1-6, 23.16 miles) within 2 minutes of our predicted time and then it was time for Van 2 to get started, right around 11:00am. I was runner #8, which meant I had to run second in our van. Runner 7 had 4.2 miles to run, so after about 35 minutes, it was time for my longest run. I knew that I wanted to continue my run-walk-run training throughout this race, but I also wanted to increase my running time to increase my speed, so I opted for a 3:1 ratio. What I wasn’t counting on was the heat! It was about 8-10 degrees warmer than we originally expected, so it hit about 80 while I was running. This part of the race was still through Miami and it was open to traffic, so there were some times when runners would have to wait at stoplights until they could safely cross the street and that definitely happened to me at least once if not a couple times. 


Mile 1 – 9:06 pace <– too fast, but feeling good
Mile 2 – 10:30
Mile 3 – 11:12 <– waiting for stoplights
Mile 4 – 10:30
Mile 5 – 11:24 <– really slowing down
Mile 6 – 11:17
Mile 7 – 11:28
Last .98 – 10:33

I ended up changing my run / walk ratio around mile 5 because of the heat – I would run for 1:00, walk for :30, run for 1:30 then walk for 1:00. My overall pace for the 7.98 miles was 10:46, which was definitely slower than the 10:00 pace I was hoping for, but considering the heat, I felt it was a good pace for me. 

Overall, Van 2 had 35.93 miles in legs 7-12 and while we definitely were slower than we originally expected, we kept moving and finished around 5:30pm. Once we finished our legs, we headed to a grocery store to stock up on some more water, Gatorade and peanut butter and then headed to the next major exchange zone to grab a hot pasta dinner and showers at the school who was hosting us. This is also where we were planning to grab some shut eye before our next legs which were expected to start around midnight. 

Tune in tomorrow for part II.

Nike Women’s Half Marathon
Interested in trying to get a free entry for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in DC? Nuun is hosting a contest for 5 free entries – follow this link and help me get some extra entries in the process (you’ll get your own code to share with friends after you register).