2016 Race #9 – Pittsburgh Challenge: 5k

My second challenge of the year kicked off with a Saturday morning 5k through downtown Pittsburgh. I headed to the expo on Friday afternoon to pick up my packets for both the 5k and the half marathon and then wandered around the expo for awhile. I had been looking forward to picking up some shirts from Fresh Factory since I had seen them at the 2014 expo, so I was really excited to see them there again. I haven’t had a chance to wear my new running shirt yet, but I’m interested to see what the local reaction will be! My goal for this 5k was to race it like I wanted to race the Run! Ballantyne 5k which would be two weeks later since I would be competing against someone in that race… I wanted to see where I stood. 

There was virtually no elevation change for this race, with the course starting on the North Shore near PNC Park doing a little loop and then heading over the Andy Warhol Bridge toward downtown. There were a lot of participants in the race, with over 3,300 finishers. According to the announcer, there were over 10,000 people participating in the 5k and the 1-mile kids race that followed. They did have pace signs in the starting corral so that people could sort themselves into approximately the right order and I overestimated my pace a little bit, but I didn’t have any issues with keeping up with or having to weave around too many people, so it worked out well.
  • Mile 1 – 8:31
  • Mile 2 – 8:28
  • Mile 3 – 8:19
Official time: 26:15
 
As I was crossing the bridge, I came up behind two boys, a teenager and one who was probably 7-8 years old. The younger one was participating in the kids marathon and my goal for the last quarter mile was just to try to keep up with them. I did pretty well until we hit the 3 mile mark and then they just took off! The race definitely hurt, but I felt really good about the effort I put in and I had kept my time virtually the same as my race in December, so I felt pretty good about my chances going into the Run! Ballantyne 5k.
 
The post-race party was held at Point State Park, the same place as it would be the next day, and I took advantage of the smaller crowd to get my picture taken with the Runner of Steel sign, sporting my Pittsburgh Penguins bike jersey, of course!
 
 
It took a little bit of effort to find the Eat ‘n’ Park cookies, which is one of the best perks of the races in Pittsburgh, but eventually I found the booth where they were giving out mini ones – they saved the full size cookies for Sunday. I also wandered down to the fountain at the point to take some fun pictures with my medal.
 
After the race, I headed back to Oakland where I was staying and wandered around the University of Pittsburgh camps for awhile. It was graduation weekend and I realized exactly 10 years earlier I had graduated from Pitt. Time sure does fly!
 
Cathedral of Learning

Volunteering at Ragnar Trail Atlanta

I’ve been trying to figure out how to encapsulate all that I did as part of the SWAT (sweaty, wet and tired) team for the Ragnar Trail Atlanta. I found out about this volunteer option in talking with the Ragnar staff at last year’s Angel Fire race and figured it would be a fun way to give back to the sport. Since Atlanta is just a 4-hour drive from Charlotte, I just drove down to the Georgia International Horse Park. Most of the team was flying in, so the team met for dinner around 7:30, had training and then all of the loop managers, and anyone else who wanted to run, headed out around 10:30pm to check out the signage on the course. I was assigned the Red loop for the race which is 6.8 miles and crosses two major granite slabs. 

Part of our job on the night run was to identify anywhere that needed more signage. We only ran into one area where we weren’t sure where to go and had to consult both our physical maps and the Ragnar app before we figured out where to cross the road and head back into the woods on the other side. It took us about an hour and a half to finish the course, which I consider to be pretty good – we spent several minutes trying to figure out where we were on the course and I had to walk a lot of the uphills after the first couple of miles (running after eating a burger and fries may not have been the best idea).

Thursday morning had us starting out around 8:00am and getting the village set up for all of the participants who were going to start arriving at 4:00pm to set up their camp sites. There are so many little things that go into a race that you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless they weren’t there and I got to see all of the little details that combine together to make such an awesome race. I spent Thursday digging holes for the totem poles for each of the loops, putting up banners and black fencing along the start / finish chute and adding more signs to my Red loop. We worked for about 11 hours on Thursday and some of the crew had to continue working while we went to dinner as they were getting teams settled with gear drop off and parking.

Friday morning was even earlier, with everyone meeting in the village just after 7:00am. Since I had the third shift for sleeping (3:30am – 10:30am on Saturday), I packed an extra set of clothes and some warmer layers for overnight because I knew I probably wasn’t going to want to walk back to the hotel even though it was only across the road (maybe a quarter mile). 

Even though I had put out more signs on Thursday afternoon, there were still more needed on the Red loop and I had noticed a lot of trash along the beginning of the Red loop (it was right beside a main road), so I went out Friday morning to walk my loop again. The first runners started on the Green loop at 10:00, so I had a few hours before I would have anyone coming through that I could talk to about the Red loop. I helped out around the village and then hung out in the transition tent to talk to runners as they finished the Red loop. 



Welcome to the Red loop!

One person commented that the signs seemed to be spaced pretty far apart between miles 3.5 to 5, so when I went out at 3:00, I took some additional signs with me to fill in where needed. I also heard that some of the signs on the granite slabs were turning in the wind. I talked with the RD and we decided to cut the tops off of the cones that were holding the signs and just clip the signs directly to the cones. Armed with scissors and more clips to fix the signs as well as 275 lights, I set off at 3:00pm to put lights on all of the directional signs on my loop. 

It was slow going putting lights on each of the signs, but it was fun to see all of the runners on the course. I walked with some folks up the major hills and jumped out of the way as I heard fast runners coming up from behind me on the single track portions. When I got to the granite slabs, I had to stop and manipulate the cones and signs a lot more, so I ended up sitting down several times to get all my gear together and put the signs up correctly. I had at least 5 people ask to make sure I was okay as I was doing this and it really reminded me that trail runners are always willing to help another runner. I ended up having to radio back to the village to have someone bring me more lights because I ran out with just over a mile to go – in total, I put out over 350 lights on the Red loop! 


The rest of Friday night / early Saturday morning went by fairly quickly. At 9:30pm when the first shift of folks went off to sleep for awhile, I took over managing the transition tent and trained the volunteers who were working there. I’m always amazed at the people who volunteer at races because they’re there to support friends or family who are running the race – I had 2 people in the 12:00am – 3:00am shift who were there to support others and weren’t actually running themselves. Those people are awesome – they stayed up in the middle of the night so that their friends wouldn’t have to! As it got later, we had more and more teams come into the tent after finishing their leg and didn’t find anyone waiting for them to hand off to. As soon as I saw someone searching around for their teammate, I went over to help them figure out what to do. I know how frustrating it is to finish a tough leg in the middle of the night and not have your teammates there ready to go. I even had one ultra team take a break for a few hours so that everyone could get some sleep.

After catching a few hours of sleep myself, I headed back to the village to grab some breakfast and then spent most of Saturday hanging out in the village, watching Steve (the announcer) host all kinds of entertaining contests – back-to-back squats, planks (the winner held it for over 7 minutes), fruit-by-the-foot kissing contest (the winners had never met before the contest started) – and watching teams come into the finish line as their last runner finished. 

At 4:00pm, the loop managers were all allowed to start out on their loops one last time to clean up all of the signs on the course. Now, I knew that I had put out over 350 lights the day before, and that didn’t include any of the wrong way signs that were on the course, so I had a lot of work ahead of me. Since there were so many signs and it would be impossible to carry everything, there were several designated drop spots that I could drop all my gear. As I was going, I split up all the materials into separate pockets (luckily I was wearing my Gyspy Runner shorts with the huge pockets), had a bucket to hold the stakes and a backpack to hold the cones and other signs. This is an example of the second drop that I did – the other two were similar, though this one had the most cones. 

I had my radio with me and was keeping in touch with everyone back at the village and it became pretty clear that I wasn’t going to finish before it got dark out, so they sent someone to do the last mile after the road crossing and had someone else come out to meet me to do a third gear drop and partner up in the sections that were wide enough to drive on. I’m glad I packed my headlamp because once I got into the last section of single track, it was dark. Since I didn’t have too far to go on that section, I took a 5 gallon bucket and was able to pull the stakes much faster because I could just throw everything in the bucket and immediately move on. Even with the extra help, it was still almost 9:00pm by the time I got back to the village and everyone was waiting on us to head to dinner.

We had a great team dinner at Coaxum’s Low Country Cuisine and even though we didn’t know we were going to get live music with dinner, it ended up being a lot of fun with everyone signing along as we ate. It was a fun, but certainly exhausting 5 days at Ragnar Trail Atlanta. I was sore for an extra 2-3 days after getting back home, but I’m already trying to figure out what other races I can volunteer for!

Lessons learned

  • I can go to a Ragnar without having a lightning delay! My first two Ragnar races (West Virginia and New Mexico) both had significant delays due to lightning in the area, in addition to West Virginia having heavy rain and New Mexico having hail.
  • I need to work on my upper body strength! Hammering a ton of stakes into the ground works muscles that I don’t use on an everyday basis sitting behind a computer. 
  • Being on my feet all day for three straight days was harder on my body than any race I have ever done. Friday night I went out on the last mile of the Red loop just to see the signage in the dark on the granite slabs and actually did some running back into camp and that felt a lot better than I expected, probably because I was using my muscles differently.
  • The transition tent created its own wind tunnel which resulted in it being much colder than anywhere else in the village. I don’t know if it was just where this tent was set up or if it happens because of the shape of the tent setup, but it was significantly colder inside the tent.
  • I overpacked. I expected this, and since I was driving to this race, I figured it would be better to be over prepared than wish I had something once I got there. I took notes of everything that I used throughout the race so that next time I should have a better idea of how to reduce how much “stuff” I bring. I also know that I lucked out with the weather this time around, so there are some things I didn’t use that I may continue to pack if there’s any chance of rain for future races.
  • Posting lots of pictures to Instagram is a great way to connect with the runners and can get my pictures highlighted by Ragnar – I had 4 of my pictures chosen for the Ragnar blog recap of Atlanta. 
Next up?
I’ll be running the Pittsburgh Challenge this coming weekend – 5k on Saturday and half marathon on Sunday. I’m excited to be heading back to Pittsburgh to run. I’ve never done the 5k before, but the half marathon is one of my favorite races – I just love the views of the city!

Relay and Run for 21k – St. Louis, MO (2016)

I’ve been traveling a lot for work this year and was hoping to take advantage of this to get a run in some new cities. In January, I took a lunchtime run around Cincinnati, but, until last month, I didn’t have the opportunity to actually run a race in a new state. With my meeting on a Thursday, I started looking to see if there were going to be any races that weekend. I thought I was going to be able to run one of my bucket list races that had been rescheduled, but since the race is in a mine, they were waiting to see if the water level would decrease to a safe level and unfortunately, they had to cancel the race a second time. Instead, I chose to do the Relay and Run for 21k

When I was packing for St. Louis, I was keeping an eye on the weather and initially it was supposed to be in the 50’s for the race. As we got closer, the weather got cooler, but when I left, it was calling for rain on Saturday and then just cooler weather on Sunday. By that Friday, they were calling for snow, so I had resigned myself to having to do some shopping while in St. Louis so that I wouldn’t freeze on the run, but Saturday came and they weren’t calling for any precipitation anymore. It was calling for high 30’s, but other than that, it was supposed to be dry. I had packed knee-high compression socks, shorts and an extra long-sleeve shirt, so I thought I would be able to manage the race with what I brought with me. Sunday morning came and when I woke up at 6:00 am, I checked the weather again… and it was now officially snowing and was calling for 2 more hours of snow before the snow would change to rain! At this point, I was thankful that Walmart is open 24 / 7! I managed to find a pair of running pants for $9 an hour before the race started and I couldn’t be more thankful. I was also excited that I had remembered to pack my Asheville marathon buff from the weekend before. 

Even though my GPS tried to tell me that the streets were already closed for where I was trying to go to get to the start line of the race, I made it there easily from my hotel and was able to stay in my car until a little bit closer to the start of the race. I couldn’t believe the weather when I got out of the parking garage, and it was clear from the shaking / muttering people around me that they weren’t ready for a snowstorm either.


It was one of those really pretty fluffy snows with huge snowflakes sticking to everything. Unfortunately, that didn’t make it easy to run in. The problem with snow is that once the wind kicks up and those snowflakes make their way into your eyes, it hurts! The course was 3 loops, but you did the first loop twice. 

The first loop had a lot of small hills in it and was concentrated through neighborhood streets. There were a ton of volunteers on the course directing people at the various turns and cops directing traffic when we had to cross the larger roads. About 2 miles into the race, I was really hurting. I hadn’t done any running since the marathon the weekend before, so my legs were virtually dead when I started the race. After another couple of miles, I started to feel better and was going along pretty good until I got back to the main streets where the wind was just whipping through the buildings, making it very cold and very hard to see whenever I would pick up my head.

Because of the loops, you go past the start / finish line twice before you actually finish the half marathon. There was an option for a relay for this half marathon, so it was an easy way to coordinate everyone from a central location. I actually found the second loop harder than the first because it had a lot more flat sections where I wanted to run faster, but I just didn’t have it. I was glad to get back onto the first loop for the last 4 miles and take advantage of some of those downhill sections again. By this point, the runners had really spread out. I have a feeling that there were a lot more relay runners than individual runners for this race, just based on how many people were at the start line vs. how many I saw after that second loop. 

Despite feeling pretty rough at the start, this ended up being my fastest half marathon this year and I finished at 2:19:43. I’ve been coming in around 2:20 – 2:30 in my half marathons lately and have been running most of them for fun or as training runs, so I was excited to see that time yet again after all the running I did the weekend before. I really liked the shirt from this race since it’s got the St. Louis Arch on it as does the race bib and medal!

After the race, I didn’t stick around very long, mostly because of the weather, but I also had to get back to my hotel, shower, change and then head to the airport to get back to Charlotte that afternoon. It ended up working out well and was a fun way to end the weekend in a new city. Getting up and ready for work on Monday was a little rough, but definitely worth it to cross state #21 off my list!

Backyard to Vineyard Challenge: Marathon – Asheville, NC (2016)

Day 2 of the challenge was met with cooler weather and threats of rain. I met up with one of my co-workers who has been part of most of the relay craziness over the past few years and we ran together for the first few miles. Since the half marathon and marathon follow the same course for about the first 10 miles, I was able to fill him in on what to expect. We ran together for the first few miles until we hit the steep uphill near mile 2, right before the first water station and I bid him adieu and did my first walk break of the day. 

It started raining almost as soon as the race started and by the time I made my way up to the Biltmore Estate, I had started to get cold (lots of walking on the uphill sections here), so I pulled out my light rain jacket and kept moving. I stopped to take a few more pictures at the Biltmore and then took advantage of some of the downhill section.

The first 10 miles of the race were exactly the same as the half marathon, then just before mile 10 we headed across the river to the other side of the estate. This section was a lot more remote and had a lot more trail sections – mostly muddy dirt roads, but some of it was just 3-4 inches of mud to wade through. Despite the mud and cold, I enjoyed the back half of the course. We even got to see some deer jumping the fences as runners came through. The rain was consistent, but not a downpour by any means. Eventually it eased into more of a fog / mist and the camera on my phone helped create some interesting pictures after it got foggy as well.

I loved the dragons on the barns

My goal for this race was to finish the weekend strong, without injury, and without wanting to crawl in a hole and die. These weren’t easy races by any account, but I enjoyed both races (yes, even the mud, which is still covering my shoes!). The elevation gain in the first 6 miles of both races was definitely tough, but I’ve learned that I’m able to pretty easily adjust my speed / walk when I need to on these uphills and then take advantage of the downhills whenever I can.



I caught up with Beth a few times throughout this race as she was volunteering while I ran. At one point, she was directing traffic and then directing runners just after mile 20. I was really grateful to see her at that point because I was still cold from the rain and didn’t want to stop to get in my bag to get to my peanut butter filled pretzels. Luckily she walked with me for a minute and helped me get them out of my bag before heading back to her post and cheering on other runners. I ate a lot more solid food during this race than I have on any previous runs – a pack of peanut butter crackers in the first half, some cookies at several aid stations and then the peanut butter filled pretzels later in the race. I’m learning to keep more salty foods with me while I run as most of the aid stations and random food given out by spectators during the races I’ve run are sweet and usually that’s the opposite of what I’m craving if I’m tired of eating GU.


About 4 miles from the end on one of the out-and-back sections, I passed Chris who was on his way to the finish line. By this point, the sun actually came out and it started to get a little warmer. On my way back to the finish, I saw my friend Michelle who was also doing the challenge (she was the one who posted about it on Facebook and inspired me to register almost a full year before the event) and wished her luck as she finished up the course as well. I ended up finishing the race in 5:21:40 which is not my slowest marathon time and I was very excited to finish under 5:30. I didn’t have any real goals for the race, other than to finish, but going out conservatively on the half marathon on Saturday definitely seemed to help on Sunday. 


The marathon finish was (unfortunately) the opposite of the half marathon, so we ended up going up the hill that we went down to start the race. After the other hills in this race, it really wasn’t much, but ending uphill is always hard! The volunteers gave me my medal and allowed me to get a blue blanket for this race and then I made my way up to get my challenge jacket. When I got to the booth, I found out we also got another medal for the challenge! There was still a lot of food left, even when I finished, which is always a plus for those of us who aren’t as fast. 

I was impressed with the organization of this race. The only downsides were some confusion at the hotel when we got to the expo (to be fair, we came in the back of the hotel and didn’t realize we needed to go to the hotel lobby to start the whole process) and having to go to the top of a hill to get food / bus back to the hotel. As I said before, staying at the host hotel was great because I got to wander around the expo again on Saturday after the half marathon and didn’t have to worry about driving anywhere the morning of the races. 

We also got all kinds of goodies for the two races, including:

  • Race shirt (short sleeve for the half, long sleeve for the full)
  • Wooden finisher medals
  • Embroidered fleece blanket for each race (I got green and blue)
  • Special Backyard to Vineyard Challenge medal
  • Backyard to Vineyard finishers jacket
This was the first time I’ve ever tried almost 40 miles in one weekend and I was definitely tired (I took a nap after both races) and sore, but after a sports massage when I got back to Charlotte on Monday, I actually felt pretty good. I took advantage of the hot tub at the hotel Friday night before the race and then Sunday after the marathon and made sure to roll out my hips and IT bands after both races, so I’m sure that helped as well. This weekend has made strongly consider an ultra marathon for later this year. It’s something I’ve been contemplating for awhile, so I’ve started doing more research and am trying to figure out if I can fit one into my schedule. 

Backyard to Vineyard Challenge: Half marathon – Asheville, NC (2016)


The weather for this race weekend changed at least three times a day for the entire week leading up to the race… it was going to rain, it was going to be 70, it was going to be sunny, it was going to be cold, it was going to thunderstorm… needless to say, the unpredictable weather made it very hard to plan race gear for the weekend! Beth and I both overpacked for this weekend, but the good news was, no matter what the weather was going to be, we were prepared! 

Since it was the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to dress up for the half marathon, including clover earrings, bows, homemade tutus (complete with glitter tulle) headbands with 4-leaf clovers on them and ridiculous shirts from Target. 


We stayed at the host hotel where the expo was held, which turned out to be a great idea, or a bad idea, depending on whether you think going to the race expo multiple times is a good idea. To complete our crazy outfits, we both bought shorts from Gypsy Runner so that we could use the pockets to hold all of our GU and other gear without interfering with our outfits (fashion first, clearly).


Since the race was all within the Biltmore Estate, we took a bus from our hotel to the race and then back again after we finished. It was really nice to be able to just walk to the lobby of the hotel to get on the bus instead of having to drive into the estate and much less confusing since when we left on Saturday morning it was still dark! Because it was warmer than we expected and I had a marathon to do the next day, Beth offered to pace me for the half and we had fun with the race, stopping to take pictures and making sure to walk when we needed to on the uphills.


Beth prancing up to the Biltmore

The majority of the hills on this race were before you got to the Biltmore Estate at mile 6, and after you get back to the bottom, you do a couple out and back sections so we got to see lots of people throughout the race. 

They made this sign just for me!

The volunteers throughout both races were awesome! On Saturday, we had one guy high-step run with us for awhile and then on Sunday they were out there in the rain, wind and cold cheering us on and offering us all kinds of goodies (I ate at least 3-4 cookies during the marathon) and supporting all of the runners. My favorite was definitely the guy who filled his beard with glitter. There are a few miles that are on a mostly gravel road and that was the worst part of the race for me because it was so uneven, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop me from running it again in the future. We had a lot of fun with this race and I finished at 2:38:01, which is my slowest road half ever, but I went into the race just wanting to take it easy to save up for the marathon, so I’m happy I accomplished that goal!

In addition to the race medal, all finishers got a fleece blanket embroidered with the race logo, Asheville Marathon & Half, Biltmore Estate, “Relax & Celebrate” – the race directors definitely know how to take care of their runners. There were plenty of snacks and water after the race, though it was at the top of the hill which can be a bit of a deterrent after racing. Overall, I really liked this race and I felt good going into the marathon the next day.


I will say that I did everything you shouldn’t do on race day – I tried a ton of new things – new clothes (shirt, shorts, tutu), new inserts in my trail shoes (though I did keep my old inserts with me, which another reason I wanted the super large pockets in the shorts and the inserts were ones I had previously used in hiking boots), a new headband and I didn’t carry water with me. Probably not the best idea given I was planning just under 40 miles for the weekend, but I’ve gotten very comfortable with the half marathon distance and didn’t feel like I was going to put my marathon in jeopardy by trying all these new things. This is definitely a do as I say, not as I do situation.

We also learned the hard way that glitter tulle is not your friend! In addition to getting glitter everywhere when we made the tutus, we were both covered in glitter by the end of the race and the glitter tulle was more stiff than the regular tulle and kind of scratchy, so we both ended up with marks on our arms from where our arms rubbed against it during the race. Lesson learned, but they did turn out pretty nice and we both got a lot of compliments on our attire for the day, including multiple comments that if there had been a costume contest we would’ve won – totally worth it!

BB&T Corporate Cup half marathon – Charlotte, NC (2016)

This is one of the Charlotte races that I had never done before, so when I was offered a free race entry, of course I said yes! Even though this would mean a race 4 weeks in a row, I figured I could use this as my last training run for the Backyard to Vineyard Challenge and just take it easy if I needed to. RSM sponsored the free entries and asked everyone to wear their awesome team shirts during the race.

I met up with Beth again before the race and we found her running group before the start of half marathon. I got my new Ultimate Direction Ultra Vesta hydration pack after my race the weekend before and wanted to try it out – I figured a local half marathon would be good test run in case it was completely uncomfortable, I could ditch it much more easily. I was looking for something that had actual bottles instead of a bladder so that I can refill them and clean it more easily. This one came with the added benefit of soft bottles that deflate as you drink from them, two additional pockets in the front and then 2 small pockets and a large pocket that could also hold a bladder in the back. I love having pockets for everything, so this was exactly what I was looking for! 


The morning of the race was cool, but not too cold and it warmed up into the 50’s by the time we finished. As we jogged to the start line, I was very aware of the extra bounce I had with the bottles on my chest – I made a few minor adjustments to the vest and it helped quite a bit, though when the water bottles are full, it’s still noticeable. 


The run starts in uptown Charlotte and wanders down to Myers Park and through Dilworth before coming back uptown to finish. There is a long climbing hill near the end of the race, as it is with most races that end uptown, but knowing where it is doesn’t make it any easier to get through! Our group of 6 that started out together slowly drifted apart over the last 3-4 miles with one girl taking off and finishing well ahead of the rest of us and then I partnered up with another girl, finishing at 2:27:28 and the other three coming in just behind us. I like meeting up with this group to run with and they’ve adopted me, even though I don’t officially run in their club, but it’s been nice to have some friendly faces to run with on these local races. 


It was very windy when we finished the race uptown (the wind whips through all the buildings), so we took a few pictures with our medals in front of the Disco Chicken and quickly made our way back home. 

 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot half marathon – Greensboro, NC (2016)

Time to play catch up… I’m now 4 races behind, so I’m going to try to catch up on my crazy 5 weeks of races! 

With Leap Day this year, I was hoping to find a Leap Day-inspired race, but the only one I was able to scrounge up on the internet was a semi-official run in Oregon, but in my searches, I came across this race outside of Greensboro, NC which promised some awesome WTF swag for finishing. The premise was two-fold – the race was partially on the foxtrot trail in Northeast Park and in order to get to that trail, you had to cross a stream, in February, in North Carolina which would leave most people asking what you were thinking. We had several weeks of on-again, off-again rain leading up to the race, so starting about a week before the race, the race director sent emails letting us know that they were keeping an eye on the stream level and would make a decision about the actual course as we got closer to the race. By mid-week, the stream had lowered to about knee-level, but with a few more storms Thursday and Friday, we were back to a 5′ creek crossing which meant we would not be taking on the foxtrot trail. Instead, we took about 3/4 of a mile to get to the loop which we did 3 times and then headed back to the start line. 

The race had more people lining up at the start than I expected, though the first trail run I did this year only had 72 finishers, so the 225 lined up for this race looked huge! The first 3/4 of a mile we were able to spread out a bit, but it did turn into a single track trail for our 3 loops, so there were a few parts that were hard to pass people, but the crowd quickly thinned out. I actually struggled a bit at the beginning of the race with my calves hurting quite a bit in the first 4 miles. I think my biggest issue was that the course was actually too runnable for me – I was running at a decent pace, but the hills were very small and rolling, so I wasn’t feeling like I should stop and walk which meant my calves took the brunt of that decision. Since it was a looped course, the leaders started passing me on the second loop and you could hear a chorus of runners announcing that they were coming up from behind us. I ended up finishing 10th in my age group at 2:42:32. The finishers medal and sweatshirt were awesome! 



It was a nice late-winter day, but after the run, I didn’t stick around the post-race festivities too long. I still had about a 2 hour drive home and the wind was making me cold. They had a few snacks available, but it was clear the earlier finishers cleaned out a lot of the food – there was still some chili left and a couple of random granola bars and I heard one of the RD’s say they had ordered more pizza, but I decided I would go ahead and start my trip back to Charlotte. I was sore the day or two after this race, and I know trail runs are going to be harder on me than road races since I haven’t done as many and you definitely use muscles differently during trail running, but I’m also falling in love with the trails – it’s always a lot of fun and racing in the woods is just so different than on the roads where you have to worry about cars, potholes and over-crowded streets.

Charlotte 10-miler – Charlotte, NC (2016)

I’m finally getting caught up on all my race recaps… it’s been a busy few weeks! This weekend was my third of five straight race weekends. Two weeks ago, I ran the Charlotte 10-miler as my last long training run for the Asheville Backyard to Vineyard Challenge that is coming up in 6 days! I was scheduled to do 10 miles on Saturday and 22 miles on Sunday, but since the race was on Saturday, I decided to switch up the days. The race starts just a few miles from my house, so I planned to run from my house to the race start and then back home again to get up to 22. I was planning to run the greenway to get to the race start, but it was still really dark when I got to that turn off, so I ran through some random neighborhoods instead, until it started to get light out. Leaving my house at 6:00am meant I got to see a great sunrise on my way to the start.



I met up with my friend Beth again and her Run for Your Life crew and we stuck together again for this race. There was a major hill near mile 9 which definitely required some extra walking, but overall it was a good race, with a lot of the run on the same greenway that I run a lot of my training runs on, so it was familiar for me and mostly flat. 

My hip flexors were really tight by the time I finished the actual race and I struggled quite a bit heading back to my house. By the time I got to around mile 18, I started walking and walked about the last 3 miles back to my house. It was definitely a day that required a post-run ice bath! 

I averaged 11:01 for the 10-mile race and 11:47 overall for the 21 miles total, so even though the last few were much higher than that, the run itself was pretty good.

I didn’t end up doing much of a back-to-back on Sunday. I actually flew out to Los Angeles on Sunday and with my flight being delayed a couple of hours, I ended up at the hotel gym for a couple of miles on the treadmill and another few on the stationary bike – definitely not all I had planned for, but it was good to get a few miles in after being on a plane for 5.5 hours.

The race gave out nice medals and a long-sleeve hooded t-shirt. It was advertised as a lightweight hoodie, and I really like it, but it’s much closer to a t-shirt feel than what I would consider a hoodie. I love the design of the medal and shirt though, so it will definitely be add to my wardrobe rotation.

 

Super Run 4-miler – Charlotte, NC (2016)

Last weekend was the big game and the atmosphere leading up to the race in Charlotte was electrifying! Facebook reminded me last weekend that 10 years ago I was in Pittsburgh celebrating the Steelers win in Super Bowl XL, so I was excited to be in another city getting ready for a huge game. I won’t lie, I jumped on the Carolina Panther bandwagon this year and got a white bib to go with my Steelers black and gold bib from last year. I don’t have any Panthers gear, so I wore my closest Panther blue and my blue Christmas lights. My friend, Beth and I decided to run the race together and met up with some of her run group before the race started. There were a ton of people at this race and it was a great atmosphere to kick off a day of Super Bowl celebrations.

  • Mile 1 – 9:29 
  • Mile 2 – 9:53
  • Mile 3 – 9:45
  • Mile 4 – 9:49
Official time: 39:39
 
The race began and ended right at Bank of America stadium where the Panthers play, so there were a ton of people getting pictures with all of the panther statues. This year they added a medal onto the long-sleeve tech shirt and there were several vendors at the post-race party, including OS1st who hosted a compression sleeve exchange – they took a pair of your old compression sleeves and gave you a brand new pair. It was a really fun way to kick off the day and I’m definitely interested in coming back again next year!

High Shoals Half Marathon – Connelly Springs, NC (2016)

This was my second year starting my running season off with a trail run. Last year I did the Charlotte Running Company’s trail run at the Whitewater Center and last weekend I upped the ante by doing a half marathon at South Mountain State Park put on by Table Rock Ultras. There was a marathon and a half marathon option, with the marathoners starting off 30 minutes before the half. I’ve hiked these trails, going to the top of the waterfall twice, and this is not an easy hike, let alone trying to run it.

 

The first section of the race started out on the road and helped spread out the runners a bit, with a short, steep uphill, then fairly flat and a little downhill before turning left into the woods and heading up. There were a lot of switchbacks in this section, but still enough room to pass people when needed. There was also a nice downhill section that lead back to the parking lot before heading onto the main trail and up towards the waterfall – so many stairs! 

The weather held off for most of the morning, originally calling for rain, but just ended up being misty and foggy through the second half of the course. 

  • Mile 1 – 13:15
  • Mile 2 – 10:17
  • Mile 3 – 19:23
  • Mile 4 – 15:01
  • Mile 5 – 16:31
  • Mile 6 – 14:12
  • Mile 7 – 15:36
  • Mile 8 – 15:36
  • Mile 9 – 12:29
  • Mile 10 – 11:51
  • Mile 11 – 14:54
  • Mile 11 – 16:15
  • Mile 12 – 8:50
  • Last .15 – 10:50
Official time: 2:49:48

I ended up coming in 6th female in my age group (30-39) and 8th female overall. I was trying really hard to catch up to the two women in front of me who ended up being in my age group (of course!), but they ended up beating me by a good 20 seconds. After the race, I caught up with a few people who I had talked to before the race, changed into warm clothes, grabbed some food and watched the first marathoner finishers come in just under the 4 hour mark. 

Overall, I really liked this course – it was really well organized, there were great course markings at each turn and it was a nice small crowd. The marathoners and half marathoners were on the same trails for parts of the race, but even being in the middle of the pack for the half marathoners, I only saw 3-4 of the lead marathoners heading the opposite way on a single-track trail, and the trails were never too crowded. There were 3 water crossings on the course. There has been a lot of rain in North Carolina lately, so the water levels were probably a little higher than normal, but I was mostly able to stay on the rocks and only got into the water up to my ankles. There were some people who avoided the rocks altogether – they were slick with the misty morning and some folks chose to go knee – thigh deep into the water instead of risking the rocks. I decided to take it slow and stayed on the rocks and never felt like I was going to lose my footing, but it’s definitely something to consider for a January race in the mountains. 

The race shirts are awesome and as part of the race packet, you got free socks from DaFeet and all finishers got arm warmers and a car sticker with the same logo that’s on the t-shirt.

I also broke the cardinal rule of racing and tried out a new pair of shoes on race day. I ordered a pair of Salomon X-Scream shoes from Ragnar (woo Orange shoes!) and tested them out by walking around the neighborhood in them for two days before deciding that they were a better option than my Hoka One Ones that have been giving me ankle trouble since this summer. I didn’t have any major issues with the shoes, though I do think I’m going to try a different pair of inserts in them as I started to have a little arch pain in my left foot near the end of the race. 

Even though I was sore for the rest of the weekend, it was a great way to start off race season and I’ve already signed up for another trail race for next month!