Mon: 7 miles
Tue: 8.5 miles including hill bursts and strides
Wed: 6 miles
Thu: 5 miles
Fri: 3.5 miles
Sat: 18 miles, including Charleston Distance Run
Sun: 3.5 miles
Total: 51.5 miles
This was an odd week, but sometimes you just gotta take a chance and go with the flow and that’s what I did. As I mentioned in a previous post, after making the Charleston Distance Run my end of summer goal race, it looked like for a while that things weren’t going to work out for me to be able to make the trip, and I actually didn’t find out I would be able to go until mid-day on Wednesday. At that point, it was a little late to undo what was already done and have a proper lead-in to the race, so I did all I could do, which was just take it easy for three days in a row then go toe the line and hope for the best. To make things even more interesting, I started to feel sick Thursday evening. I developed a sore throat and a lot of drainage, which kept me from sleeping very well. Essentially it seemed like all the signs were telling me this was a bad idea and might not turn out very well, but I made up my mind to block out all the negative stuff and just go do the best I could.
After making the drive to Leslie’s grandfather’s in Fayetteville Friday evening and grabbing just a few short hours of sleep, it was time to head to Charleston and see how things would turn out. I awakened to a warm, humid morning that just felt downright nasty. It was one of those mornings where the air was so thick it was almost hard to breathe. My car was showing a temp of 78, and I heard that the dew point was 70. At this point, I started to get a little nervous. I knew what a tough race this was even on a good day, and with a poor lead-up, including me feeling very fatigued the previous couple of weeks, the fact that I was dealing with some sickness/allergies, and now the weather, I really wasn’t sure how things were gonna turn out.
About 20 min before the start, I headed out for a warm-up, which I would do from where I parked towards the start line in front of the state capital building. I ran ten minutes total and was sweating like crazy just jogging for that amount of time. “Not a good sign,” I thought, but worrying about it would do me no good, so I lined up and got ready to go. The race started with the firing of a cannon, and we were off. I had made up my mind to run a VERY conservative race, so I settled in to what I felt like was a comfortable effort. I gradually passed a decent number of people over the first mile or two and tried to figure out what place I was in overall. As best as I could tell it was somewhere in the 10-12 range. I caught another couple runners between miles 2 and 4, then we started up Capital Punishment Hill. According to my Garmin, the 5th mile climbed 292 feet, and from the way it felt, that was a pretty accurate measurement. It just seemed to go on and on and on. I tried to remain conservative, but in spite of that, I passed three more runners while going up the hill. I was now in 7th, which is where I would remain the rest of the race.
Once Capital Punishment Hill is over, the next couple miles are rolling, but there are some pretty good climbs in that section. On one, right around the 6 mile mark, my quads started to let me know they weren’t real happy, and even as conservative as I’d run to that point, I began to have some doubts about finishing 9 more miles. There was nothing I could do about it at that point, though, so I just focused on the runner ahead of me and began to work my way out of the hills.
Mile 8 is the big downhill mile of the race, and I tried to make sure I didn’t do too much damage to my quads pounding down it. Even at that, I split a 5:47 mile as we headed back across the river and back into downtown Charleston. The runner in sixth put a pretty good gap on me coming off the hill, but I could still see him and I focused on trying to stay in contact. He and I had run about the same pace the entire race, which was good, as it gave me a target. The last 7 miles of the race are all pretty flat, and as we hit miles 9 and 10, I actually felt pretty good. I saw Leslie and Kaitlyn around mile 9, and that brought a smile to my face as I high-fived them on the way by. I was starting to get tired and also a little over-heated, but I’d been drinking at every aid station and felt like I could manage my way through the final third of the race.
Just past mile 11 I saw Leslie and Kaitlyn again, but at this point I was starting to hurt. The conditions were catching up to me and the sixth place runner was starting to put a little ground on me. I knew I was in the top-ten at this point, and I just wanted to hang on to that, so I adjusted my effort a bit with the idea of just making it to the line in the best shape I could. Miles 12 and 13 came and went, and in spite of the fact I felt like I wasn’t running as hard or as fast as I had been, my splits stayed consistent (6:14 for both those miles) and I noticed the runner ahead of me wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he seemed to be getting a little closer. As we worked our way through mile 14, I started to make some significant ground on the guy in front of me, and now I went into race mode. I didn’t really think I could catch him, but I decided to at least give it a shot and hope that in doing so it would help me hold on to my place in the race.
After having probably 150 meters or more on me somewhere between 12 and 13 miles, as we approached the stadium for the finish of the race, I had narrowed the gap between myself and sixth place to probably 15 meters. That was as close as it would get though. As soon as he stepped on the mondo, he went into a kick, and I had no response. I tried to go, but I had used up what I had in trying to run him down. With 200 to go, I threw in the towel and just tried to enjoy the last bit of the race as they called out our names on the loudspeaker in the stadium. I crossed the line in 1:34:23, feeling pretty rough but also feeling a great sense of accomplishment as I had overcome a lot of obstacles to run a pretty solid race. Coming in I had three goals: a top ten finish, an age group win (which was good for $125), and a time of 1:35, and I accomplished all three.
After the race, I began to think that maybe I’d been a bit too conservative early and also coming off the hill. If I’d stayed with the guy who finished ahead of me in either of those sections, there was a good chance I might have beaten him and run under 1:34. It wasn’t a day to take too many risks, however, so in the end I had no real regrets or complaints. The women’s winner was a 2:37 marathoner who was quoted in the newspaper the next morning as saying her goal was to run 5:55-6:05 pace but wound up averaging 6:25. She said that 6:05 effort turned into 6:25-6:30 miles, which demonstrates how tough the day was. The guy who won is an Olympic Trials marathoner, and the guy who finished second has run a 2:20 marathon. Both of them ran well slower than their usual marathon pace. When guys as good as the entire top 5 hit splits no faster than they did, you know it’s a rough day on a tough course. I looked back at some of the people who run this race most every year, and it seemed like everyone was slower than usual. That said, I’m still not entirely happy with my time, but the conditions definitely added a significant chunk to it and I don’t feel as bad when I see it affected runners who are a whole lot better than me.
So, I can check the CDR off my bucket list of races to run and I’m really glad I got to do it. I’m already thinking about returning next year to see if I can better this year’s performance. Hopefully the weather will be a little more kind, and I also feel like I have enough course knowledge now to run a little more aggressive race, although you never want to be too aggressive on this course. Now it’s time to recover, refocus, and start to get a little speed back in my legs. Onward!
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