Race #159
Half Marathon #52
2019 Race #3
South Carolina Half Marathon #39
2019 Half Marathon #1
Crossfit864 Half Marathon #1
At the middle of the week I wondered if I would be able to run this race. I think, after difficulty Wednesday night with trying to sleep and all my body wanting to do is cough, I think I might be on the downhill side to health of this illness. Thankfully, a day off work and lots of rest kept me at a fitness level ready to run a half at marginal effort, definitely not race effort.
With that in mind, Mom and I headed to the “booming metropolis” of Clinton, SC to run the Crossfit864 Half Marathon. I had a feeling that this would be a small race but I had no idea just how small “small” meant for this race. 20 perhaps?
We pulled into the parking lot half an hour before the race which was plenty of time to head inside the crossfit box to pick up my bib and shirt, stop by the bathroom and head back to the car to sit for about ten minutes before heading to what I assumed was the start.
Ready to head out!
With five minutes to go before the race, everyone still stood around the parking lot with no sign of gathering at a starting line or indication of where that starting line was. Around that time someone shouted from back at the crossfit box for everyone to come back. Okay. We walked back, heard a few words, listened to a police officer pray, and then walked right back to approximately where we stood before. Okay.
Everyone lined up together to wait for the start. I stood staring at my watch, hoping that it would locate satellites before the race started. This current Garmin takes much longer to locate satellites, especially in new locations. (I also wish that I could start or stop music after going to the workout recording screen but I digress.)
Mom is zoomed in but not many more people stood in front or behind me.
A few seconds after 8, we were off. Well, a few seconds after that actually. Someone said go but no one started running. We did not realize that this was the official start. Also, thankfully, a few seconds before the start my Garmin found satellites. Phew!
We took off along with the few 5k runners, yes the starting line included 5k and half marathon runners. I settled into what I hoped was a decent, sustainable pace while pulling my phone from my flipbelt so I could start it. (See note about Garmine two paragraphs above.)
Almost from the start, I decided that I would stop and walk for a minute at miles 4,8, and 12, just as a mental break. It’s been a couple weeks with an illness thrown in since I have run double digits consecutively.
After a mile and some change, I started to see the lead 5k runners start to come back. They had a straight shot down and back on this road. The half marathoners kept running. I wondered, since so few people were running this race, if I would end up running the race all on my own or if at least one or two other runners would run near me. I hoped for the latter so that I would have someone to watch up ahead make the turns to avoid getting lost. Right after the 5k turn around, I kept running, along with two other gentlemen, one of which I kept in sight ahead of me for the majority of the race.
Just before mile 2, we made our first turn onto a much larger road with a median. I remembered that the race director had advised us to run opposite traffic and started to move over to the left like one of the gentlemen in front of me. After a couple hundred meters, one of the motorcycle cops came up beside me and told me to move over to the median and run there. Um…ok? I ended up running several miles on the out and the back in the median of a four lane road. That simply does not feel safe.
Pretty soon, we came upon mile 4, just as my Garmin indicated. For most of the race, my Garmin indicated mile splits exactly where the race mile markers stood. For such a small race, they had mile markers at every mile except for mile 6.
Mile 1: 8:23
Mile 2: 8:33
Mile 3: 8:40
Mile 4: 8:48
Clearly I lost pace during those miles but since I did not obsessively check my Garmin, I had no concept of pace for most of the race.
Just before mile 4, I passed one of the gentlemen I had followed since the 5k turn around. I started to put marginal distance between us so I ended up not walking a full minute at mile 4. During my walk, however, another gentleman passed me. I ended up following just behind him for the rest of the race.
The middle four miles of my three chunks of four miles (according to my mental split not the actual miles in the race) felt like the hardest. We did have a gradual incline of about 50 feet, according to Garmin, throughout these miles but the “hills” in Clinton form textbook “rolling hills.” I almost allowed myself to start walking every other mile but kept pushing at mile 6.
After the race, Mom asked me if we ran through residential areas. I told her, “sort of.” While some of the streets we ran down had houses on them, those houses did not have close neighbors. Clinton has, perhaps, 5 “densely” populated streets, at least streets that we ran through. The rest of the course took us on roads that felt quite separated from major populations. Thankfully, I could see the two gentlemen in front of me although the gap between us widened marginally over the miles.
By the time my pre-arranged walk break arrived with mile 8, I felt quite relieved. The gentleman I had passed four miles ago, I could no longer see behind me. He must have fallen off the pace quite a bit.
Mile 5: 9:03 (includes walk break)
Mile 6: 8:55
Mile 7: 8:50
Mile 8: 8:41
I like those negative splits there, especially since I felt so crummy through those miles.
After my longer walk break at mile 8, the two gentlemen in front of me started to pull farther away and I started to lose sight of them. The road curved a little bit through the next two miles as opposed to the straightaways we had for most of the course.
Just before mile 10, we rejoined the much larger road and once again had to run in the median. This portion also had some hills which I forgot about after the race. A lady mentioned to Mom that mile 11 had a crazy hard hill so Mom asked me about it. I had no recollection of it. I guess running in the upstate has distorted my view of hills.
I really started to lose sight of the gentlemen in front of me at this point although I did not worry now that we headed back towards “town.” This race had plenty of volunteers at each turn. Although, strangely, only two of them had actually indicated the direction of the turn. All the others just stood there. I suppose if I had asked, they would have told me which way to go. Thankfully, the non-communicative volunteers were positioned in places where the gentlemen I followed made the turn ahead of me within my sight.
I did have to take a walk break on the hill so I guess it was significant. I just forgot about it immediately after the race.
Mile 9: 9:25 (with walk break)
Mile 10: 8:38
When I took the walk break at mile 10, I told myself that I could go the remaining 5k without a break. Mentally, however, I convinced myself that I needed a break and walked again at mile 12 but that’s jumping ahead just a bit.
As we continued down the road, I had to navigate several intersections where the median narrowed for a left turn lane which meant that I moved over to the left and hoped that the cars pulling in to turn left at the intersection would go ahead and turn left before I reached the intersection so that I did not have to stop. I almost had to at one of them but thankfully I continued on unimpeded for this section.
By this time, I had completely lost sight of the two gentlemen in front of me. As I approached a larger intersection, I thought, perhaps it was the same intersection from the first portion of the race but it did not look similar. I saw no one around me and no volunteers. I thought perhaps I would need to turn right since we had turned left onto the road on the way out but as I scanned that side of the road, I saw no one who looked like they were helping direct runners. I started to panic just a little because I did not want to have to stop in the middle of a larger intersection with no clue which direction to go.
Right at that moment, a motorcycle cop came from the left side of the intersection which caught my attention. Throughout the race, these two cops had passed me multiple times both directions, policing as much of the race course as they could. (My assumption) Catching sight of him made me look over to the left where a volunteer stood in front of a truck. At that point he indicated that I should cross there. Okay, a little late for comfort but at least he was there.
He told me to take the next right on Chestnut, not too much farther so I did.
This section would be the only section I could describe as residential with the houses situated much closer to each other. I knew I was close to the end of the race as well.
When mile 12 finally came around, I took a strategic walk break for one minute before picking up the pace again. I had only 1.1 miles to go. I could do this. I made the second to last turn and at that point heard the train. In the pre-race briefing, the race director mentioned that we should not have any problems with the train but if any of us got stopped by the train, she would have a volunteer at the crossing who would mark down how much time we had to wait and then communicate that to the race direction. Yup. I got stopped by the train. Since I did not run this race for time or for anything more than another half marathon under my belt and a long run training for Salt Lake, I did not mind. The volunteer took down my information, tore off the piece of paper and gave it to me as the train finished passing. I needed to give this to the timer at the end of the race. Okay then.
With only just over half a mile to go, I took off running, motorcycle cop escort at my side (just through the railroad crossing), made the final turn and headed in. As soon as I saw the McDonald’s that I had seen across the street in the parking lot when we first arrived, I knew I was close.
As I passed Mom near the finished, I heard her say, with great disappointment, that her camera wasn’t working. No problem. I don’t have any running photos but that’s alright.
I finished, got my medal (generic 13.1 but at least there was a medal), gave my piece of paper to the timer, and we headed out. No need to stay.
Mile 11: 9:20
Mile 12: 8:51
Mile 13: 9:10
.17 nubbin: 8:03
Overall time: 1:56:33
(I also stopped my watch at the train crossing since they planned to manually adjust the time.)
Overall, I’m pleased with my performance, especially since I just started to get over being sick. I probably won’t run this race again. I like small races but this was too small and too exposed on the roads.
On to Green Valley 10 Miler next week!