Rex Healthcare City of Oaks Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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raleigh, North Carolina
United States
43F / 6C
Overcast
Total Time = 1h 57m 50s
Overall Rank = 286/1271
Age Group = F 40-44
Age Group Rank = 28/184
Pre-race routine:

Worried about the time change but then realized that I had extra time because of it. Stopped worrying about that. Woke up at 4 am to thunder. Oh no! I kept on thinking that it had nearly three hours to clear out. I dozed until the alarm went off at 5. Rain had passed. Ate and English muffin with peanut butter and had a banana along with a bottle of water with Camelbak Elixir. Got a trash bag ready to use at the race start in case it was still dripping out.

My goal for this race is to stick with the 2:00 pace group. I think that is good given the recent hip problems that I’ve experienced.
Run
  • 1h 57m 50s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 08m 59s  min/mile
Comments:

I enjoyed this race a lot. I entered it for fun and as a way to give some focus to my post Vineman training. Logistics were super easy with parking just a few blocks away from the start/finish line. I got to the start and did the port-a-pot thing and then went to bag check. I turned on my Garmin at this point. It just sat there. For minutes. I turned it off and turned it on again. No Garmin. I did a soft reset, nothing. At this point I decided that the battery and discharged overnight (it happened once before) and that since I was running with the 2 hour pace group, I didn't really need it. I put the Garmin in my bag and checked it.

I lined up with the two hour pace group. I could not hear a thing that the announcers were saying so I hope that they didn't say anything important. I chatted with a few folks in the pace group. More and more people kept coming. We were getting really packed in there -- the marathon, half marathon and 10k had a mass start.

And then we were off. The pace was very comfortable and I had a good time. Sometimes I ran with the two hour half marathon group and sometimes there was too much jostling and I went and ran with the four hour marathon group. I saw my parents at the half way point at Cameron Village and that was fun. I saw them before they saw me. I did a big wave and then the saw me. Fun! At about mile seven I had enough of the jostling in the pace group. I decided that if I was ahead of the pace group that I would be able to meet my goal so I did that. When we got to the first part of the clover leaf and did the out and back on Faircloth, I could see that I was a few blocks ahead of them. The same was true for the out and back on Hillsborough and on Gorman.

When I previewed the course I was concerned that the out and back would be boring but actually they were really fun. It was neat to see all of the other runners and I found it to be an enjoyable part of the course. After the hill over the tracks on Gorman with just over a mile to go, I tried to pick up my pace a bit for the run in to the finish line.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing. It was meant to be a fun race and I had fun!
Post race
Warm down:

I had a hard time finding Kevin after the race. The finish area was a bit cramped and I could not see him. I was starting to get chilled so I tried to find the bag check. I went the wrong way and I found the FOOD. That was good. I grabbed some Great Harvest cinnamon swirl bread (yum!) and went back toward the finish area and found Kevin. Then I found my bags and put on a jacket.

Event comments:

Overall this was good event and I would do it again. The logistics for both packet pickup and parking were very good. The organizers could do a few things to improve it -- get the parked cars off the streets, have a family meet up area, have longer water station (hard to get over in time to get them) or more warning about them, better signage (food this way, bags that way) -- but that is just nit picking. Nice medal. Nice event shirt. I'm a happy camper.

Also, I hate it when they have women's results and men's results but not overall results.


Profile Album


Last updated: 2012-08-13 12:00 AM
Running
01:57:50 | 13.1 miles | 08m 59s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/184
Overall: 0/1271
Performance: Good
Course: The course started at the NC State University bell tower and went through downtown Raleigh, around the government complex, past the Memorial to the Confederate Dead and then through Glendwood South. From there it continued on Peace and Clark past Cameron Village to Meredith College. Then it made a clover leaf with a finish down Hillsborough Street to the bell tower.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Not enough
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? No
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 4