Tag: Charlotte

Run Run Rudolph 5k – Huntersville, NC (2016)

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So this was an impromptu registration… last Thursday one of my friends posted that he had registered for the 5k after not running since Marine Corps Marathon and we went back and forth a few times and I looked up the 2015 finishers results. First place in my age group finished in 30:11 which convinced me to register for the race. I had heard the course had some hills (understatement), but with my last 3 5ks under 27:00, I felt pretty confident in being able to place in this race.

There wasn’t an elevation map of the race online, but I saw the course map and tried to use Map My Run to get an idea of what to expect. I knew there would be a long climb through the first mile and a quarter, then a good downhill portion and some rolling hills near the end. The long climb was tough, but knowing the downhill was coming kept me going. The water stop was in the middle of the hill and I did take a few seconds to drink a few sips before taking off again. I couldn’t really feel my legs through most of the race which made it hard to tell how fast I was going. On the downhill section, I couldn’t feel my legs going any faster, but as I got to the bottom of the hill and started to go uphill again, I looked at my watch and saw 7:XX and knew I would be slowing down pretty quickly. I struggled a lot on the last few hills which were much steeper than the first long hill, but the out and back section which I thought was going to be a lot longer was pretty short and then we saw the 6 mile marker (the 10k did the 5k twice) which meant we were getting pretty close to the finish line which was flat and then downhill. Two women passed me on the last big hill and I kept them in my sights as we flattened out and once we hit the 3 mile mark, I turned it on and passed them both. I ended up finishing the last .1 at a 6:19 pace!

  • Mile 1 – 9:02
  • Mile 2 – 8:51
  • Mile 3 – 9:48
Official time: 28:10, 2nd place in my age group
No one else stuck around for our medal picture, but I got mine!
There was another good group from Run for Your Life at this race, including a festive grinch who cheered on all the racers and posed for lots of pictures with everyone – yet another reason I’m appreciative they have adopted me into their running group and I’ll be joining them in January!

Charlotte Half Marathon – Charlotte, NC (2016)

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 The was the first year for this race as the Charlotte Marathon (and half, relay, 5k and mile). Last year it was the Thunder Road Marathon, which was my redemption race for Savannah Rock ‘n’ Roll getting black flagged. Over the summer, Beth and I had finally committed to running Rock ‘n’ Roll Vegas with our free entry from Savannah and I had thrown out that it would be cool to run Charlotte the day before since we could then do the last Thunder Road and the first Charlotte race. We didn’t act on it right away, but I had planted the seed, we made sure the flight options would work, and she shared the idea with some of her fellow Run Far runners. In no time it went from one crazy idea to 5 of us committed to do it!*

Fast forward a few months and as Beth and I were running the Marine Corps Marathon we realized that we would have to cover that distance again in two weeks, plus fly across the country in the middle. Those 12 days in between were all about rest for me. I took my dogs for a few walks, including a 7.5 mile hike, and got a sports massage to help me fully recover from the marathon.

Friday I met up with the Run Far group to pick up our packets and this year instead of printing names on the bibs, they let you “personalize” them. At first, I would have preferred something printed on mine, but then we came up with the idea of putting “CLT to Vegas” on all of ours and then adding some hashtags. #ringleader

Race morning, Helen and her boyfriend (our lifesaver!) picked all of us up so that we wouldn’t have to leave cars in uptown Charlotte over the weekend and we would have a quicker escape to the airport after the race. The rest of the group decided that they were going to start the race early because they were concerned about our cutoff time (2:20 in order to get to the airport for our 11:30 flight). I wanted to run the race for an official time, so I just started out near the front of the corral to avoid having to weave through people at the beginning of the race. I’ve done this race a few times, so I knew the course and knew there would be some good downhill sections to take advantage of and, of course, some long climbs that would slow me down.

I had a 2:15 pace band left over from another race and figured that would keep me in line for the time I needed to run. Having just run Rocktoberfest a month ago in 2:13, I was pretty confident in my ability to stay under 2:15, especially since it was much cooler to start this race and I love running in the colder weather.

After a brief downhill, we hit our first hill of the morning and that’s when I realized I forgot to put my buff on – my lungs were not happy with me in those first few (speedy) miles. I always struggle to breathe deeply when it’s cold out – it was mid-40’s for the race start, so I was definitely feeling that in my lungs.

I had my watch set to 5:1, but I ran the first few miles straight before we hit our first real hills in mile 3 and I walked as I ate my first GU. I like keeping the run / walk timer on even if I don’t plan to fully use it because when I do decide to walk, I will sometimes force myself to wait until it’s actually a walk break and then stick to the 1:00 buzzing to keep me on track. I’ve gotten a lot better at sticking to short walk breaks, but depending on how the day is going (my last two marathons, for instance), I’ve needed something to push me to start running again. Plus, with the 5:00 run, if I am struggling, I will split that up into 2:30 running, 1:00 walking, 1:30 running and then hit the actual 1:00 walk break.

I ran my first few miles fast and came close to my fastest 10k time, coming in at around 58 minutes, which was almost 4 minutes ahead of my expected pace and by mile 7, I was about 6 minutes ahead of my 2:15 pace band. In my head, this race had a really tough hill around mile 7, and even when we got to mile 8, I was still waiting to hit that hill. I’m pretty sure I was actually thinking of the hill in the RaceFest half marathon which I haven’t done since 2014. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that there wasn’t an extra monster hill waiting for me. There is a beast of a hill on Morehead Street in mile 9 and the remainder of that hill near the end of mile 10 (you cut away in the middle of the hill and then return to the same road after a residential detour), but again, I knew that it was coming, so I planned my walk breaks for the worst of the hill.

After that, I hit mile 11 and was still almost 6 minutes ahead of my pace when I hit a mini wall – I was out of water in my bottles and was taking another GU and my body was not too happy about that idea. I walked a few extra minutes and waited for it to settle down before I started shuffling, then running again. I only had 3 miles slower than my goal pace of 10:18 – mile 5 (10:19), mile 10 (10:51) and mile 12 (10:28) and most were well under it. I ended up finishing in 2:08:16 which is my second fastest half marathon, only slower than The Scream which is about 90% downhill, so I was really excited about my time.

When I finished, I immediately got into the gear check line which did. not. move… finally after 15 minutes of waiting, I just went up to the front of the line and asked someone if I could jump in because I needed to go catch a flight and even after they had my bib number it took them almost 10 minutes to find my bag. After that debacle, I ran to find the rest of the crew and my lack of uptown shortcuts meant I added an extra half mile to my walk (which was really a run because I was late), but I made it to the group and wasn’t the last one (yay!) so I had enough time to snap a quick picture of my medal with the tops of the uptown buildings behind the trees and the Carolina Panthers on the practice field in the background.

Now onto Vegas for race #2 of the weekend!

*Beth found out at packet pickup on Friday night that she never actually registered for the Charlotte half, so she decided not to pay the race day fees to join us Saturday morning, so only 4 of us did the back-to-back races.

Rocktoberfest half marathon – Charlotte, NC (2016)

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Back in the spring I had some discussions with a coworker who decided that he wanted to run a half marathon this fall. Always on the lookout for more running buddies, I told him I’d help him get ready for the race, he just had to pick one and we could do it together. After deciding that a fall half would be the most realistic, he chose Rocktoberfest since it was a local race which removes a few of the potential challenges for a first-time race. I’d never done this race and as the last local long distance race I hadn’t done yet, I figured it would be a good race, even though it was only a week after Ragnar Carolinas.

I gave my friend a basic training plan and tried to check in to see how his training was going. As happens a lot of times, life took over the training plan and he ended up running less than he wanted to in preparation for the race. Expecting to come into this race having just finished 50k the weekend before, my plan for this race was just to take it easy, but after the shortened Ragnar Carolinas, I decided to go ahead and push the pace a little. We decided to run together and just see how it went – he was worried about not being able to hit the cutoff time and I wondered how I’d feel running the whole thing – giving up my run/walk wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

The race starts and finishes uptown near CPCC and we didn’t want to deal with the traffic bottlenecking in the parking deck beside the start, so we met up at the midtown Target to take advantage of their parking deck next to the greenway. We got there with plenty of time to spare and met up with Beth before she joined her run group teammates for the half.

This race has a lot of hills! The course takes a different route than most of the Charlotte races and while we got to see some new neighborhoods, there weren’t really many spectators along the course. This isn’t unique to this race as it seems like a lot of the neighborhoods in Charlotte aren’t interested in getting up early on the weekend to cheer on runners – there are obviously exceptions, but crowd support is usually quite sparse.

We kept a good pace through the first few miles, hitting close to 9:00 at some points. I tried to reel us back from going to fast too soon, but we were both feeling good, so we just kept running. I had forgotten to bring my water belt, so I had to use the water stops, but luckily I had thrown a couple extra GU into my bag in the morning and wore my Gypsy Runner shorts with the huge pockets so I still had somewhere to store my gear. We used the water stops to take a quick walk break, assess how we were feeling, and I used it to fuel.

We stayed together through the majority of the race, though we were each in our own zones, listening to music most of the time. I pulled ahead a bit around mile 11, so I walked at the top of the hill until he caught back up again and we stuck together until the end, taking one last walk break at the last major hill. It’s a (very) slight downhill finish, which is a nice change from most races which seem intent on putting a big hill where everyone can see you struggle, so as we got a couple blocks from the finish line, Daniel said “let’s go” and I asked if he was sure before taking off to the finish. My last kick brought me in 5 seconds ahead of him and he admitted that he didn’t have any more to give in a sprint to the finish. My official time was 2:13:00, averaging 10:05 per mile. I haven’t done a half that fast in awhile, usually pacing closer to 2:20-2:30 depending on how many times I stop to take pictures. The flip side of this is that I only got pictures before and after the race. With no official walk breaks scheduled and trying to keep pace with another person, I wasn’t really running “my race” like I normally would.

Overall, this race wasn’t as bad as I was expecting based on what I had heard. Yes, there are sections where you’re inhaling exhaust and long stretches where you only see other runners, but I found the traffic to be well controlled and the cops and volunteers were attentive to the runners, cheering us on as we passed them in addition to keeping motorists where they needed to be. I really like the shirt and medal for this race, which was another motivating factor for why I wanted to check this race off my list. Definitely not my favorite Charlotte race, but one I would do again if someone else wanted to run it.

Run! Ballantyne 5k – Charlotte, NC (2016)

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Six months after I beat my friend in a 5k, I was towing the line for a rematch. I was feeling pretty good going into this race – I was two weeks out from the Pittsburgh 5k where I was 2 seconds faster than I had run in December – I was ready! I hadn’t done the 5k version of this race in several years. The past few years I ran the 8k or the 10k when they had it, so the course was different from when I had run it in 2013. 



As soon as I started the race, I knew it was going to be a rough day. The first part of the race was slightly downhill, then up a fairly significant hill before flattening out and then back down the same hill. I was moving pretty well down the hill and I wasn’t trying to run too hard, but I was having trouble catching my breath.

  • Mile 1 – 8:22
  • Mile 2 – 8:25
  • Mile 3 – 8:55
Official time: 26:56
 
With the exception of my last lap, my splits were pretty close to my Pittsburgh 5k (8:31, 8:28, 8:19), but that last lap included walking under some sprinklers up part of the last hill. That was the point where I had completely given up on my race. I went into it with the same strategy as the December race – keep him in my sights and kick it up at the end. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to cash in on him going out too fast at the start – I caught up to him near the water stop around 1.5 miles in, but he was able to stay ahead of me and pull away through those last few uphills. He ended up beating me by 40 seconds which I expected – I gave up around the next-to-last turn. He was almost at the top of the hill by the time I rounded the corner and I knew I didn’t have it in me to catch him. 
 
Looking back, it wasn’t really that bad of a race. It was in the 60’s and sunny and I was coming off of 3 other races over the previous 2 weekends along with travel all over the east coast, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised that I was a little burnt out and, I was still able to get 5th in my age group. I did swear off any more 5k races when I finished, but I may amend that to no more 5k races when it’s more than 40 degrees outside! 

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

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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.