Run With the Lions 5K

I’m not one to lie, but I don’t due 5K’s that often.  I was in Savannah for a conference and being the runner I am, I did some race searching and found the Run With the Lions 5K.  It’s a 5K race supporting St. Andrews School about 10 miles outside the Historic District of Savannah.  Oh, by the way, it’s a trail run around the school.

Friday on our lunch break, I hurried over to Fleet Feet Savannah.  Now, I didn’t register online and they were only taking cash or check at registration.  One of the Fleet Feet workers, however, charged my credit card and gave the people doing registration cash- thanks guys!!  I snatched my bib and my shirt and headed over for some more learning at my conference.

Saturday Morning, I headed over to St. Andrews.  The fact I could run in a T-shirt and shorts for the first time since October, was beyond awesome.  After parking about 1/4 mile from the school, I ran over to the start.  Soon enough, we were off and running.  We headed around the baseball field and into the woods.  I forgot about the burn trail runs give you.  That and trying to get footing caused me to slow down.  The fact it rained the night before left the course wet.  After we finished up the first mile, we looped around some more.   There was groups of people cheering, the school mascot and a group of girls asking for high 5s.  The last .1 was on pavement (thankfully).  Finishing time of 33:41.  Second slow race in a row means a fast Cherry Blossom run in a few days, right?

Anyways, good cause, fun little race and being able to run in a t-shirt and shorts was all worth it.  Head over here for results

March Madness Deals

In celebration of March Madness (and the fact I’m on Georgia for a few days and can actually run outside and not freeze for the first time since October), enjoy some more money in your pocket!

1. Towpath 1/2 Marathon: $10 off with towpath3 through 3/31/14

2. Cleveland Marathon and 1/2 Marathon: 10% off with EXPERIENCECLE14 through 4/4/14

3. Racer USA: 25% off with FB1000  through Friday, 3/28/14 (TOMORROW!)

4. Towpath 10 Miler: $10 off with TENTEN85

5. Active.com: Advantage members who sign up for 4 races will get their 5th reimbursed from  Active up to $65 (only for races registered for since 1/1/14)

 

Summit Athletic Running Club Shamrock 15K

What a change 24 hrs make.  After leaving my race yesterday, I headed into Summit County to pick up my bib/packet for the Shamrock 15K, put on by Summit Athletic Running Club.  A 15K race is rare in general, and with the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in DC a few weeks away, I needed a long run.  It was 20 degrees colder today and flurrying when I left my apartment for the race.  It was a noon race and that was one of the few pluses of the race.

I arrived about 15 minutes prior to the start and silly me, thought my arm warmers that pulled over my hands would keep my hands warm all race.  Runners were lined up about 5-7 minutes before the gun went off.  It was all roads of Summit County, which I didn’t think would be too bad.  I must have forgotten my drive to Blossom Music back in August and the hills back there.  The ‘Ready, Set, Go’ start was at noon promptly and off we went.  The race also has a 5K that started at some point after us.  The first 2-3 miles were decent.  No issues, no problems.  I felt good enough to pass up the first water station.  After we passed mile 4, we made a turn and enter the illusion of a hill.  Only, it was no illusion.  It was a 1/2 mile hill, all up hill.  We were promised no more hills, only we got about another 2 miles of hills.  Who’s bright idea was that??  There were a good amount of water stops around the way, but the 2 miles of hills really brought my time down because of how steep they were.  Most of us were miserable by that point.  We were also running into the issue of vehicles.  The entire race was on open, active roads.  Some parts had volunteers or police directing traffic.  Somewhere close to mile 7, a pretty decent stretch was blocked off by cones.  The issue was, that traffic coming towards us runners (who were running towards traffic), was that they weren’t paying attention to the cones and kept using they lanes.  We were down to running single file along the median (not the safest race if ever run).  I was glad for about 1/2 mile when we turned off for a bit and out of traffic for a bit.  By the time I finished, my finish time was about that of my 10 mile times.  Cold and hills slow me down like no other.  I usually like one or the other, not both together.  At least we got water and medals at the finish.

Afterwards, since the race started/finished at the elementary school, I went into the gym to warm up.  Other runners were commenting on the vehicle issues and apparently a fight nearly broke out when a volunteer waved a car through and the driver got upset about something, did a u turn down the road and came back.  Thankfully, there was soup and snacks, but they were out of hot chocolate (and coffee) by the time a decent amount of 15K runners got back (I have no problem with 5k runners having some, but leave some for the rest of us).  As I put it to someone, today was about 0% enjoyable, 10% safe and not something I’d likely come back for unless the car issue was dealt with and it was warmer.  Guess I’m not having luck with running 15K races!

Welcome Back to Racing!- St. Malachi 5 Miler

I’ve been relatively silent this winter on the blog.  Yes, there was the Indianapolis Santa Hustle Half (which I stayed with friends from college), but it never made it to the blog.  Thanks to a little thing called residency, weekends (and racing) have been minimal since mid December.  Factor in negative degree weather and few races in Cleveland (heck, any nice weather days have been during the week if we’re lucky), I welcomed myself back to racing this morning.

2014’s first race happened to be the St. Malachi 5 miler in downtown Cleveland.  What’s better, is that it was a 9:45 AM start time and the roads were clear (no snow or ice!).  I got to the race around 9 AM, and credit the Luck of the Irish for my free parking find.  If the City of Cleveland would have been on their game, they could have charged us for it, but their loss.  I trekked up to St. Malachi’s and picked up my bib and shirt with more than enough time to run back to my car and drop things off.

The race starts at the Veteran’s Bridge (at Detroit and Superior) and we were sent off with bag pipes playing (would you expect anything less?).  Lots of green, leprechauns and orange.  The first 2 miles of the race were relatively ok.  No hills that we cared about, although, some sun would have been nice.  We also made a quick realization about how badly the City of Cleveland needs to fix its potholes.  A runner in front of me 1.5 miles in face planted thanks to a pothole and about 3 miles in, as we doubled back after our turnaround, a runner with a running stroller ended up with a front wheel that came completely off (and we were 2 miles away from the finish).  You don’t realize how fast you aren’t until you see the lead runners coming back and approaching mile 3 as you’re hitting mile 2 (oh well, what can you do?).  After mile 3 and hitting wind head on, and a long steady hill slowed me down.  I also realized how I’ve been on the treadmill too much (thank work and weather for that one).  We came around the Brown’s stadium (if only they were any good) and kept on trekking on.  After mile 4 we were close to where we started and came back over Veteran’s Bridge.  Always nice to be greeted by the 2 mile racers cheering you on (and the people already done with your race).  The nice thing was that the last 1/3 of a mile though, was that it was all down hill!  A 46:16 finish is something I’ll take since it was 40*, windy and mostly cloudy out.

Post race, we had venders set up in the parking lot outside the church.  Obligatory bananas, water and green bagels were available.  The best part was the soup being passed out to warm you up.  St. Malachi and Hermes racing do it right- finish the race next to an Irish Pub who love to have runners after races!  I didn’t go (as I had to pick up race stuff for my 15K tomorrow).  This race is a keeper and one I’ll be back for…