Month: September 2016

(Originally posted January 18, 2016.)

I thought 2:14 was an aggressive goal. I finished in…2:10:43?!? I’m happy to be wrong.

I drove down to Charleston on Friday. It’s right around a 3 hour drive from my house to the hotel.

It had been raining off and on all morning in Charlotte. I managed to get my bags into my trunk during a brief lull, but the rain really picked up as I headed south. It finally stopped raining maybe 10 miles outside of Charleston. I got to my hotel and checked in, then headed over to the expo. It was in a high school gym. It was probably a little bigger than the Raleigh City of Oaks expo, but a little smaller than the Thunder Road (which will apparently now be the Charlotte Marathon) expo.

They had some computers set up so you could look up your bib number in case you didn’t have access to your e-mail and hadn’t memorized your number. (I had both access to my e-mail and my memory, so I was good.) First, I picked up my bib. They had safety pins, which was good because I realized I didn’t bring any with me. Then I picked up my goodie bag, and finally my shirt.

The bag is really nice. It’s canvas, with a drawstring and shoulder straps so you can wear it like a backpack. In the bag, we got a couple of coupons for Dick’s Sporting Goods, a map of the courses along with info on where to park before the race as well as some other miscellaneous info, and some brochures for some other upcoming races.

Here’s the obligatory picture of the t-shirt.

Sadly, it’s not the elusive white t-shirt that I haven’t seen since my first two races. It’s actually a very light blue. But hey, it’s a long sleeved tech tee, and it’s a light color that’s visible when it’s dark out. Score. Oh, and that’s a pretty cool design, it’s based on a painting by a local Charleston artist. Also, I waited until I got home before taking the picture, so the shirt has a few extra wrinkles.

I did notice Gu on sale at the expo, so if I had forgotten to bring mine, I could have bought some. They had some shoes on sale, but alas, no wide widths for Brooks Adrenaline. Curse my wide feet!

After I left the expo, I stopped by CVS to pick up some band-aids. I realized at some point that I forgot to bring some nipple protection. I got away with an unprotected 14 mile run once, but I didn’t want to push my luck. First, unlike on my 14 mile run, I would have a bib, and that might make things worse. Second, I would be wearing a white shirt, so if I did have issues, it would be painfully obvious.

I stopped off for dinner at, uh, Burger King. It was right next to the hotel, I was tired, and I was in a strange place and didn’t have any better ideas. (Then again, considering my race performance, maybe I should try it again next time.) I ate my dinner and watched YouTube videos in spurts (the hotel wi-fi was shaky at best).

I went to bed around 10:15, planning to get up at 5:45. When I checked in, they said breakfast would be served downstairs starting at 6, so I figured that would give me time to shower, go downstairs, grab some food, then go back upstairs to brush my teeth, put on my bib, and use the bathroom.

I got downstairs at around 6:15, and breakfast wasn’t ready. Hmm. OK. I waited for a couple of minutes, but nothing. Fine. I went back upstairs. Luckily, I had a backup plan. I had brought a box of Clif bars with me. I didn’t know exactly what they’d have available for breakfast, or what the quality would be like. (Out of all the hotels that partnered with the Charleston Marathon, I was staying in the one with the 2nd cheapest rate. As it turns out, on Sunday morning I had breakfast, and it was nothing special, but it was OK. Also, besides the Saturday breakfast snafu and the fact that my room only had a view of the Burger King and its parking lot, I can’t complain about my hotel.)

I ate two Clif bars, then did the brush teeth-attach bib-use bathroom thing. I gathered my stuff, and drove over to the recommended parking lot. I pulled in to the space, and realized I was missing my sunscreen and my watch. Luckily, it was 7 AM, so I had plenty of time to go back to the hotel. In retrospect, I’m glad I forgot my watch, because I’m not 100% sure I would have gone back for just the sunscreen. And I would have regretted that decision very much, because for about 75% of the course, there was absolutely no shade.

After a quick trip to the hotel, I put on my sunscreen and my watch. It was about 50 degrees, but there were almost no clouds, so I figured it would warm up during the race. I would have preferred it to be overcast, but that’s pretty close to perfect weather. (And after running the last 9 miles of City of Oaks in the rain, I certainly won’t complain.)

The Mayor of Charleston said a few words before the start, then two high school students sang the National Anthem. (One of them clearly had microphone issues, but otherwise, they did well.) That was a recurring theme with the entertainment, since the proceeds from the race went to the Youth Endowment for the Arts, so it was all done by kids. Marching bands, a concert band, a group of kids playing keyboards (OK, that one was kind of odd).

And, at exactly 8:00, the race began. I was pretty far back, so it took about 2 minutes for me to get to the starting line.

Mile 1-5: 10:04, 9:50, 10:11, 10:17, 9:57.

At the very beginning, it was really crowded, and I could see my pace hovering around 11:00. I pushed ahead as the crowd thinned out a little bit. Mile 2 was a little bit faster because I saw a woman in a Gronkowski jersey. Of course, my first instinct, as a bitter Jets fan, was to pass her. Unfortunately, she was considerably faster than me. Luckily, I realized this before I used up all my energy trying in vain to keep up. I muttered a few choice words under my breath and let her go.

The first 3 miles were along the river, and it was really pretty. Then we turned on to King Street to run through downtown, which was also really cool. The downtown part was pretty much the only stretch where we got shade.

There were aid stations just before 2 miles, and at around 3.75 miles. All of the aid stations had water and Gatorade, but I ended up sticking with water the whole time. I took my Gu at the 3.75 mile aid station. I prefer to wait until around the 4 mile mark, but I have to have water to wash it down, and I didn’t want to wait for the next aid station.

By mile 5, I had settled in to a pretty good pace, and I felt good.

Mile 6-10: 10:09, 9:52, 10:24, 10:01, 9:49.

Aid stations were at 5.5, 7.9, and 9.7 miles. I took my second Gu at 7.9, so that’s why that mile took 10:24. (When your slowest mile of the day is 9 seconds faster than the average pace of your previous PR, you’re having a good day.)

By this point, we had gotten to an industrial area. It wasn’t much to look at. I was able to stay focused though. I kept watching my average pace, wondering if I could keep it up.

Mile 10-13.1: 9:24, 9:41, 9:18. (8:08/mile pace for last .22 miles)

The answer is yes, I could keep it up. Aid stations were at 11.25 and somewhere in the last mile, but I skipped that one, because at that point, I knew it wouldn’t help, and it would just slow me down.

We ran through the naval yards, which was slightly more scenic, and even got back near the river, through the accurately but not creatively named Riverfront Park, before heading back inland to North Charleston and the finish.

My legs really started to feel tired as I pushed myself toward the end, but I managed to keep going. There were 4 turns right near the end, but it felt like about 20. They called my name as I crossed the finish line, and when I stopped my watch, it said 2:10:46.

They gave me a medal, took the timing chip that was attached to my bib, and gave me a bottle of water.

They had some laptops set up with a piece of paper covering most of the keyboard telling you to use the keypad to enter your bib number, and don’t touch anything else. (I was amused, but I followed instructions.) I put my bib number in and got my official time, 2:10:43. Woohoo!

I made sure I still had my car key, and took my usual picture.

You can see where they tore off the timing chip, but left a little bit behind. It’s hard to see in that picture, but yes, that’s the same painting on the medal that’s on the t-shirt.

I grabbed some Gatorade, an apple, and wandered over to the shrimp and grits. Yes, they give you shrimp and grits at the finish. It was quite tasty.

They had beer from Sam Adams and from Traveler Beer. I’m never going to complain about beer that doesn’t come from AB InBev (Bud Light, Michelob Ultra), but I thought it was odd that they had beer from Boston and Burlington, Vermont. Traveler had a grapefruit shandy, which, uh, no, but Sam Adams Boston Lager was fine. My usual complaint about Sam Adams is that there are better beers you can get for the same price, but this one was free, so my complaint was invalidated.

I also got a mimosa. As a general rule, I prefer my orange juice straight, but I figured any race can serve beer afterward, when else will I get a post-race mimosa?

This was the first time I’ve done a point to point race. Every other race I’ve done has had the start and finish line pretty close together, if not on the exact same spot. So after the race, they had shuttle buses taking people back to the parking lots near the starting line. As many things as I worry about pre-race, I’d much rather not worry about riding a shuttle to the starting line, so I’d much rather do a post-race shuttle.

So, as you can imagine, I’m really happy with my run. I ran the race I wanted to, with my only walk breaks at the aid stations. I did it faster than I expected, and I still had enough left for a kick at the end.

If there’s one thing I could nit-pick, I ended up at 13.22 miles. Maybe I could have done a better job on the tangents. Even with the extra mileage, it was a PR by over 7 minutes. (For comparison, I ended up with 13.16 miles at my last half, Charlotte RaceFest.) So yeah, that’s definitely nit-picking.

One other thing I noticed, when I looked at Garmin Connect, I had a new record for 10K, 1:00:21. I’m pretty sure that’s the last 10K of the race. Wow. (Of course, now I want to sign up for an actual 10K race and see if I can get under an hour.)

Overall, I enjoyed the race. It helped that it was easily the flattest course I’ve done (not counting a few 5Ks). Charleston is a pretty neat city. I got to see a little more of it Saturday afternoon. This race is definitely on my radar for next year. I don’t know if I’d want to do the full marathon, since that would put my longest long run right around Christmas, but I’d consider doing the half again. As long as I can still get some decent miles in around the holidays, it would be a good race to kick off the new year.

(Originally posted November 30, 2014.

I didn’t include it in the report, though I had mentioned it in a previous entry on my old blog, but my B goal was a PR, which before this race was 33:44.)

I need to work on my goal setting. (Right now, this is a good problem to have.)

Before I start, I do want to point out that unlike most races that stay on the same weekend each year, the Charlotte Checkers 5K moves around based on the Checkers schedule, since they want to have a Saturday night home game the same day as the race. Last year, the race was a week earlier.

Let me start with packet pick-up. I normally complain about races that don’t have Thursday packet pick-up (not counting races with an all-day expo like Thunder Road), but in this case, they had a good reason. They did offer Wednesday night packet pick-up at Charlotte Running Company in Dilworth, but I was already in Raleigh by then. I got back into town early Friday afternoon, so I was able to go over to the Carolina Ale House and get my packet. Apparently they had some free appetizers and some drink specials, but free appetizers and drink specials were probably not what I needed on the day after Thanksgiving. I appreciate the sentiment though.

There was also race day packet pick-up. I wasn’t paying too much attention to it, since I was already registered and had my packet, but it seemed like the lines for pick-up/registration on race day were pretty reasonable.

So, the packet itself. I gotta say, I was pretty impressed. When you sign up, they tell you that race entry includes a ticket to a Checkers game. If all they did was hand me a bib, a shirt, and a ticket, I would have been satisfied. The shirt was an actual tech tee. It’s red, which is kind of funny. I started November with 0 red tech tees, and now I have 2. Of course, since the team’s colors are red and black, and last year’s shirt was gray, it was most likely going to be either red, black, or white.

In addition to the ticket and a 2014-2015 Checkers schedule, there were a bunch of coupons, a pack of Lance wheat and cheese crackers, Chapstick, and what is probably the most unusual item I’ve gotten from a race, a can of CVS Aftersun Cooling Foam. Yes, a foam that you can put on sunburn. I (unfortunately) know sunburn, and I had never heard of this stuff. I usually go with aloe gel. I hope I rarely (if ever) have to use it, but I guess it’s good to have.

All of this stuff was in one of those drawstring bags that you can wear like a backpack.

So, the morning of the race, I woke up at 5:25 AM, showered, ate some whole wheat toast with peanut butter, used the bathroom, and took some store brand Imodium AD. (The first dose worked, I had no problems the rest of the day.) It was around 30 degrees according to my phone, but it was clear, so I knew there would be sun and it would warm up a bit, so I went with my Thunder Road Half red long-sleeved tech tee and long pants. I chose the red partly because it was my most recent race, and partly because that race went really, really, really well, but mostly because later that day, my beloved N.C. State Wolfpack would be taking on the evil University of North Carolina Tar Heels, so I wanted to wear red to support my alma mater. (And they won! 35-7! Go Wolfpack!)

I ended up parking in the parking deck at the Metropolitan, about a block away, because I seriously underestimated the size of the parking lot at Pearle Street Park. I could have gotten in there easily. Oh well, for a 5K, a little extra walking isn’t too bad.

It did warm up a little, and by the time the race started, it was up to a balmy 34 degrees. Before this year, that would have been a record for my coldest race ever, but I’ve had two races this year that were colder.

Here’s a shot of the starting line (which doubled as the finish line) right before the start.

I did move up a little after I took the picture. At 8:00 AM, we were off. Once again, I’m going to use my times and distances from my Garmin Forerunner 220.

The first mile had a slight uphill before we got to McDowell Street (which meant that there would be a slight downhill right before the end, sweet). Once we turned right on Elizabeth Avenue, we went down a decent hill. At the end of the first mile, I looked at my time, and decided my strategy would be to keep going as fast I could and hope I don’t run out of gas.

Mile 1: 9:13

From Elizabeth Avenue, we turned right onto a section of the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, where I normally run for my long runs on the weekend. There were some ups and downs, but it was fairly flat.

We had a water stop in this section right around the 1.5 mile mark. I did grab a cup of water, just to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, they decided to just set up a bunch of cups on a table rather than have volunteers hand them to runners. So I had to actually stop to pick up a cup of water. I was hoping to try running through a water stop to see if I could do it, since it was only a 5K which I know I can finish without any extra water. Once I got the cup, I started running right away so I could try to drink the water while running. I succeeded in not choking or spilling the water, so that was successful. The only downside is that the trash bin was right next to the water stop, and I had already passed it by the time I finished my water. Luckily, I knew there were some trash cans later on along the greenway, so I ended up only carrying my empty cup for about a tenth of a mile.

My time wasn’t quite as good, but I was still in good shape for a PR.

Mile 2: 9:37

Once we left the greenway, we turned right on to Morehead Street, which is pretty much just one long uphill. I kept going, constantly checking my watch and doing math in my head. I knew that they didn’t do chip time, only gun time, so I didn’t know my exact time. I was pretty sure a sub-30 minute time was in reach, though.

We turned right on to McDowell, then right on Baxter to take us back into the park for the finish.

Mile 3: 9:29

Last .15 miles: 1:07.5 (7:24/mi pace)

As I approached the finish line, I sped up. I also could see that I was really going to finish in less than 30 minutes.

I crossed the finish line, stopped my Garmin, and got a high five from Chubby, the Checkers’ mascot.

Post race, there was water (but no Gatorade), bananas, some kind of jelly-like stuff, some granola bars, and the saltiest bagels I’ve ever tasted.

They had a few tablets set up where you could enter your bib number and get your results, which is probably easier (and definitely less wasteful) than repeatedly printing out the results as they come in. I entered my bib number, and got my official time: 29:37.0. Much better than I expected. For the record, my Garmin showed 3.15 miles in 29:27, for an average pace of 9:21/mile.

Here’s the obligatory post race picture with my car key.

So, I set a record for my fastest mile (9:14, first mile), my fastest average pace for a run (9:34/mile), and I beat by previous 5K PR by over 4 minutes. Not bad for a race that I wasn’t completely sure I’d be able to do until Tuesday.

There were 306 finishers, so it wasn’t a huge race. That certainly helped during the first mile, it wasn’t overly crowded. There were 461 finishers last year, so it was down a little, but I wonder if some of it was due to people traveling for Thanksgiving.

That evening, I went to see the Checkers play the Milwaukee Admirals. Here’s my view.

The Checkers were wearing special Charlotte Hornets style jerseys for this game instead of their usual red and black. It was really weird. I thought it made them look like the San Jose Sharks, and in my opinion, that’s not a good look.

The Checkers won, 5-4, and scored the winning goal with 1:30 left. So it was a very exciting game, although if you like good goaltending, this wasn’t the game for you.

Overall, it was a good race that I ran way better than expected. Like I said at the beginning, I seem to have a problem setting goals, since I beat my A goal (32:30) by almost 3 minutes, but for now, it’s a good problem to have.

(Originally posted September 28, 2014.)

I got a PR! OK, it was my first 15K race, so of course it’s a PR. But overall, I’m fairly pleased with how I ran.

One random note about this race is that, besides being my first 15K, it’s the first time I’ve run a race on a Sunday. All 9 of my previous races have been Saturday morning races.

Packet pickup was very easy. When I signed up, I chose the University location of Run For Your Life, since it’s close to work. I stopped by after work on Thursday. The packet was just a bib, timing chip, and t-shirt. (Again, no tech tee, just a cotton/polyester blend, boo. Also, I didn’t see any safety pins for the bib, which was just odd, but I have safety pins from previous races, so no big deal.) They had packet pickup on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, plus race day pickup, and Thursday and Friday pickup was at all Run For Your Life locations. (Saturday was at the University location only.)

I did realize late Saturday that maybe I shouldn’t have done yard work Saturday morning, the day before a race. As far as I can tell, it had no affect on my run. Other than that, I took it easy all day. I ate spaghetti for dinner, of course. Carb loading.

I didn’t really sleep well, but that’s pretty normal before a race. I ate my usual two slices of whole wheat bread with peanut butter.

Cornelius is a bit of a haul for me, and it took about 45 minutes for me to get there, although some of that was due to the construction on the bridge at Exit 28 over I-77. Anyway, there was plenty of parking at the Jetton Village Shopping Center.

I applied lots of sunscreen just to be on the safe side. It was overcast at the start of the race, and the sun threatened to break though the clouds a few times, but the sun wasn’t really a problem. (Yes, I’m aware you can still get sunburn on a cloudy day. I’m fairly certain it’s happened to me before.) The temperature was 59 degrees, which felt really nice. There was some humidity, but it was tolerable. I can’t really complain about the weather, especially after my last race.

I was going back and forth on what goal time I should set. I eventually settled on 1:46. I thought I might be able to get in under 1:45, but I knew the course had some hills. I also considered 1:47 because of the hills, and the fact that I worried that I was due for a bad run. As it turns out, there’s one other factor I forgot to consider, but we’ll get back to that.

I made my way to the starting line. It wasn’t obvious at first, since all they had was a timing mat, but I found it. There was also a 5K that started at the same time. (We split with the 5K runners about a quarter mile in.) So here’s a shot of all the runners in front of me just before the start.

The starting line is somewhere up there. It took me a good 30 seconds to get to it after the start.

Before I get to the race, I just want to point out that this was a really nice looking course. Early on, it goes through Jetton Park, which is really nice and has some great views of Lake Norman. If it wasn’t so far away, I’d consider running there more often. Later in the race, there were spots where you could see a little bit of the lake. Well, you kind of had to look in between some very, very large houses, but it was still pretty nice.

I always worry about starting out too fast in races or any situation where there are a lot of other runners. Some of those runners are way faster than I should be going. But I made it through the first mile in 11:03 according to RunKeeper. Considering there were a few downhill stretches (Why, oh why, do races put the downhill on the first mile?), that wasn’t too bad. It certainly wasn’t Ludicrous Speed.

On Mile 2, I slowed down a bit, although part of that was the water stop at the very end of the mile. I walked at all of the water stops. One thing I have to say, they did not skimp on the water at the water stops. I appreciated it. Not that I’ve ever seen any races where I thought they didn’t give out enough water, but for some reason it seemed like they were giving out more than usual here. This ended up being my slowest mile, at 11:27.

Mile 3 had another water stop. It also had a stretch on John Connor Road, which is just awesome. I finished in 11:15.

Miles 4 and 5 were a little faster, 11:01 and 10:58. Maybe I should have slowed down a little bit here, but again, this wasn’t Ludicrous Speed. There was another water stop during Mile 5. Also, near the end of Mile 5, we turned on to Flying Jib Road. In any other race, that would be the best road name, but you can’t compete with a Terminator reference.

I think I started to feel it on Mile 6. I still made it through with only a walk break at the water stop, but my time was up to 11:15. Not too bad, though.

Mile 7 had the last water stop, which I walked, but otherwise, I kept running. I do wish the last water stop was maybe half a mile later. My time was 11:19. Mile 8 was really tough, but I kept chugging along at 11:18.

Mile 9 finally broke me. About halfway through, near the top of a hill, I took a walk break. It helped, though, because my time went down to 11:12.

I took one last walk break, just after Mile 9, and I ran the rest of the way, and even sped up at the end. I crossed the finish line, and I later found out that while my gun time was over 1:46, my chip time was 1:45:38.7. I made my goal. (Side note: I don’t recall getting tenths of a second in my chip time before. Although it’s quite possible that I’ve gotten it at previous races and just ignored it.)

Now, one of the things I forgot to take into account when setting my goal was the fact that GPS distance is almost always longer than course distance. My actual distance was almost 9.49 miles. I didn’t stop RunKeeper right at the finish line, but it was pretty close. So according to the official timing, my pace was 11:21/mile, but according to RunKeeper, it was 11:10/mile. Also, for the last .49 miles, RunKeeper had me at a 10:33/mile pace, so I was definitely strong at the finish.

Had I considered the likely mileage difference, I probably would have set my goal at 1:47, which I would have easily beat. So, yeah, I’m pretty happy with how I ran. Other than miles 4 and 5 maybe being a little too fast, I can’t really think of anything I’d do differently. Sure, I wonder if I had slowed down a little there, if I could have finished without those walk breaks. But that’s definitely crossing the line into nitpicking.

After the race, they gave out bottles of water and goody bags. My bag had a banana, a bagel, and a peanut butter chocolate granola bar. They also had cups of Gatorade available.

I have to whine briefly. The bagel had raisins. I hate raisins. A raisin is a waste of a perfectly good grape. I did try to pick out the raisins, and ate about half of the bagel with all of the raisins removed, but then I gave up and threw away the rest. OK, whine over.

I was a little disappointed that the beer was Michelob Ultra, since it’s not very good beer (I admit it, I’m a beer snob), and besides, I’d much rather see beer from local breweries at races.

I’ll give them credit, though the peanut butter chocolate granola bar was really good.

My car key made it to the end of the race, and here’s the proof.

Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with my bib today for some reason.

I wandered around for a bit and found where the results were posted. (No timing snafus this time around.) Like I said earlier, I was happy with my time and I beat my goal.

The course was tough, but I thought it was fair. (The OrthoCarolina 10K course was totally unfair.) I’m not sure, but I think it might have been a slightly tougher course than the Thunder Road Half Marathon. Thunder Road has tweaked their course this year, so I’ll have to see how it feels this year compared to LungStrong. And like I said, this was a really nice looking course. Overall, it’s a good race, well organized, and I’d like to run it again at some point.

15K is a really interesting distance. 9.3 miles is long, but not quite as long as a half marathon, It’s a good challenge, but not as draining as a half. It’s pretty rare to find a 15K, though. I wish there were more of them locally, but as far as I know, LungStrong is the only local 15K.

I do think this was a good warmup for my half marathon in about a month and a half. I think (and hope) my pace will continue to improve. I’ve still got an 11 mile long run, a 12 mile long run, and a couple of 10 milers. (OK, the second 10 miler is during my taper.) We’ll see how much I can improve between now and November 15.

Hottest. Race. Ever.

I survived, even though I’m such a glutton for punishment that I ran an extra 9(!) miles total. Like I said on Facebook, marathon training is serious.

I’ll start with packet pickup on Thursday. I always appreciate it when Saturday races have Thursday packet pickup. I drove over to the University location of Run For Your Life after work. The bibs weren’t pre-assigned, which seemed unusual for a race of this size. They handed me bib #351, from the top of a stack of bibs, and made a note on the computer that that would be my bib number for the race. They offered me safety pins, but I have more than enough from previous bibs. I also got two tickets to the actual Greek Festival which starts on September 8, and a t-shirt. Sadly, it’s not a tech t-shirt, but it looks nice.

Of course it’s blue. All my shirts are blue. (Not really, but I do have a lot of blue race shirts.) They had gender specific shirts again this year, and the women’s shirt was a light orange.

A friend of mine invited me to join him for drinks after work on Friday. This seemed like a bad idea for several reasons. Obviously, I was running a race the next morning. I also had planned on driving to Raleigh (almost 3 hours away) after the race. My friend picked a place, Blue, that’s in downtown Charlotte, which I’d have to ride the light rail to get to. And the light rail was going to be packed with Panthers fans, because they were playing a preseason game Friday night. In spite of all of that, I decided to go.

I made it up there, a little later than I had hoped, mainly due to all the Panther fans (No offense to Panther fans, I usually root for you guys). I ordered a beer, and met a guy who works with my friend. Of course the topic of running came up, and my friend’s co-worker mentioned that he wanted to put together a Ragnar Relay team. Ragnar has been on my radar for a while, so I was really excited to find someone else who’s interested. Moral of the story: Just say yes, you never know what will happen.

I did manage to get home and get to bed at a decent hour. I don’t usually sleep well the night before a race. I guess it could have been worse, but it could have been a whole lot better.

Now, my training plan had me running a 4 mile warm up run, then the 5K race, then 5 miles after the race. Last year, I got a late start due to some bathroom issues, and could only run 2.5 miles before the race. This year, I wanted to get the 4 miles in. I did the math, and figured I’d need to start running sometime between 6:30 and 6:40, so I’d need to get up around 5 AM. Ugh.

I got up, showered, got dressed, ate two Clif bars, drank a bunch of water, brushed my teeth, used the bathroom, and took a pre-emptive store brand Imodium AD. (It worked.) I brought my FlipBelt with me, not because I needed to carry a bunch of stuff with me, but I needed a place to put my medal. (The medal was new this year. I’m not a big fan of medals for 5Ks to begin with, and I’d have to run while carrying the medal. I know I should be grateful for the medal, and I know it’s a First World Runner Problem, but it’s still inconvenient.) I brought a Gu as well, and decided to use it right before I started my warm up run.

I drove over to Freedom Park. It works out pretty well. I’ve heard that the parking close to the starting line is a mess, but Freedom Park is about a mile away from the starting line, so there’s plenty of parking, and I needed an extra mile for my warm up anyway.

I put on some sunscreen, ate my Gu, drank some water from the water fountain, and started running at 6:36 AM. I did some quick math, and figured I had enough time for 4 easy miles. The problem is that it was already 73 degrees and really freaking humid.

I ran a little bit along the greenway, ran back to East Boulevard, and headed toward the starting line. I ran down a couple of side streets, then down Dilworth Road East and Dilworth Road West, in the opposite direction that I’d be running in the race.

I was approaching the 3.5 mile mark, and I realized that while I had enough time to get that last half mile, I needed time to try to cool off (or at least stop heating up) more than I needed that distance. I stopped my warm up at 3.51 miles. (In a freaky coincidence that I didn’t realize until later, my bib number was 351.) I figured I’d add the half mile to my “cool down” run, so it would be 5.5 miles.

They had some water bottles out before the race, so I grabbed one and quickly drank it. It helped a little. I then wandered over toward the starting line, and took this picture.

It’s no fun standing around waiting for a race to start when your shirt is already drenched with sweat. I felt bad for the people standing around me.

One difference I noticed this year is that the Greek Cathedral was being renovated, and part of the parking lot was closed, so a lot of stuff was moved around from last year. The sound system was noticeably worse this year. I couldn’t really hear anything, but at some point, I heard what sounded like a countdown, and we were off. I crossed the starting line at 7:34 AM.

I should have moved up a little closer to the starting line. I had to work around several slower runners, and an older guy in jorts(!). Setting aside for a moment the fashion merits (or complete lack thereof) of jorts, who runs in denim? And in August, in Charlotte? Crazy. Anyway, I still managed to finish Mile 1 in 8:58, which wasn’t terrible, but sadly, it would turn out to be my fastest mile.

In Mile 2 I had gotten past the slower runners, but the heat was taking its toll. At around the 1.8 mile mark, we got to the water stop. I power walked through and grabbed a cup of water. As I started running again, I felt all of that water in my stomach. My overall pace had crept up to over 9:00/mile, and with the heat, I knew I wasn’t getting a new PR. (I guess it means I don’t have to update the banner with a new picture for my 5K PR. Yet.) Knowing that I had another 5.5 miles to go after the race, I pulled back a bit. Eventually, my stomach felt better, but the heat and humidity were still brutal. I finished Mile 2 in 9:42.

Mile 3 didn’t get any better. I did notice a black and white cat sitting next to a group of spectators, and decided that I’d look up the Greek word for cat, and that would be my nickname for the cat. According to Google translate, it’s “Γάτα” (or, when spelled phonetically, “gáta”). So, black and white cat, I now name you Γάτα. I finished the mile in 9:47, giving me the dreaded positive split. Ugh.

I did manage to rally right at the end, even though it’s the only uphill part of the course, and for the last .12, my pace was 7:51/mile. I crossed the finish line and heard them call my name, which is always a nice touch.

They gave me a medal and a small canvas bag. Inside the bag was a whole banana and two mini muffins. The muffins had some kind of reddish berries in them that I couldn’t identify. Bits of strawberries is my best guess. The muffins basically tasted like sugar, which, at the time, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I grabbed another bottle of water to wash down my food and try to cool off a little.

The free beer was Michelob Ultra, which, even though I really couldn’t drink beer at that point, is still disappointing. It’s definitely not local, and in my opinion, it’s not good either.

They had some laptops set up where we could look up our time, so I went over to get the official result, which was 29:22. (My Garmin had me at 29:24 and 3.12 miles, so I did a pretty good job of starting and stopping my watch on time.)

I’ll say this, in spite of all the construction, they did a pretty good job keeping everything organized. Other than the sound system, I can’t really complain. (I can complain about the weather, but the organizers can’t do much about that.)

Anyway, after some orange juice and some Gatorade (I wouldn’t recommend that to most people, but they ran out of bottled water, I needed hydration, and apparently I have a really strong stomach), I took the obligatory car key picture.

(Side note: Later that day, my phone died. I don’t know exactly what happened, but it was very sudden. So this picture ended up being the last picture I would take with my LG G4.)

With that, I posted my picture on Facebook, put my medal in my Flip Belt, and started my final 5.5 miles. Ideally, I should minimize the break between the race and the “cool down” portion of my run. I took 38 minutes. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that long, but I’m not a machine. I mean, at that point, it was up to 82 degrees. I did stop at my car to drop off my medal, and I also stopped at every water fountain. It wasn’t pretty, but I survived. (5.51 miles, for a total of 12.12 miles for the day.)

I have mixed feelings about my performance. I was hoping for a better time, and I’m disappointed that I got slower on each mile, except for the small kick near the end. I was slower than last year, but it was much warmer this year. I feel like that’s the story of my current training cycle, my paces are slower, but this summer has been so much more hot and humid. (Also, I’m fairly certain that if I had stayed home Friday night, I still would have had a similar result, so I definitely don’t regret going out.) Other than the water stop, I didn’t take any walk breaks, so there’s that.

I finished 2 minutes and 15 seconds slower than last year. Last year, it was 66 degrees with a little humidity. This year, it was 79 degrees with a whole lot of humidity. I may not have gotten a PR, but I did set one new record. 79 degrees is the hottest temperature I’ve seen at the start of a race, breaking the record of 76 degrees at the 2014 OrthoCarolina 10K Classic. I still think OrthoCarolina had higher humidity, and not only was it twice as long, it definitely had a much more difficult course. Still, to put it in perspective, I did finish faster in this race than my first 7 5Ks.

One other note, I thought that this would be the last run ever in my 4th (and last) pair of Brooks Adrenaline 15 shoes. I retire my shoes at 400 miles, and I thought the 12.1 miles would put me right at 400, but apparently there was a math EPIC FAIL on my part, and I ended the day with 399.9 miles. (I ran in them one last time the week after the race, putting them at 406.9 miles.)

Vital Stats (This is something I haven’t done in any previous race reports.)

Full Name of Race: Yiasou Greek Festival 5K presented by Novant Health
Location: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 600 East Boulevard, Charlotte.
Date and Time of Race: August 27, 2016, 7:30 AM (Actual start: 7:33 AM)
Bib Number: 351
Official Finishing Time: 29:22, 9:27/mile. 460th of 1,105 Overall, 53rd of 77 in Age Group (Male 40-44)