Race #11 for 2014 is in the books! I've run 2 small races with Gage between my Spartan weekend and this little 15K and I just realized today that I didn't do race reviews for them. Doh! I can tell you that both of them were a ton of fun and Gage did great. Although he did tell me after the 2nd one that he doesn't want to go run anymore, he wants to stay home with Dad on Saturday mornings. We both laughed about that, but I told him that it was totally fine with me. Of course last week, he asked to go exercise with me, so we'll see how long his resolve lasts.
On to the race review! I've run this race a handful of times over the last 10 years. There is a 5K and 15K option and I've always done the longer route. It used to be just a loop of the lake, but they've changed it up in the last few years to be an out and back from Norbuck Park to Garland Road along the west side of the lake. This race always has great swag - the tech shirts are great, there's usually a hat and one of my very favorite gym bags is the bag from the 2006 or 2007 race. This year, it was a double medal that caught my attention. Theresa and I ran the Too Cold to Hold in January and the medal from that race clicks together with the medal from this race for a double medal extravaganza! Exhibit A:
So let's start with the obvious. Yes. Yes, it was hot. Very hot. The race starts at 7:30a, but it was still a ridiculously warm day. However, we all knew going into this one that it was going to be hot. That's part of the fun of signing up! The organizers are aware of this as well and they did a great job to make it as bearable as possible. The route actually has some really large shaded areas - although there is a large section that is not shaded as well - there were people dumping shop rags into ice water and handing them out at each aid station and 3 or 4 of the aid stations had large mister/sprinkler contraptions that were spraying everyone. There were also a few extra aid stations for a 15K distance. The volunteers were really great and I never felt like the heat was unmanageable or overwhelming.
This was a fun run for me, just hanging with Theresa and enjoying the day. I went out early and put in about 3 miles on my own, which was a good warm up, and then I picked up Theresa and we headed to Norbuck. It was nice to chat with some of my street racing friends that I haven't seen in a while, everyone was laughing about how hot it was and looking forward to sno-cones after the race. We took off and it was a really comfortable pace. We did a little walking on this one, just saving some energy for the last couple of miles. When we got back to the finish, we snagged our medal and headed over the check out the freebies. This race has a great post race party with a lot of vendors, treats and contests. There's a foam rolling station, a group doing massages, a group handing out sno-cones (best thing ever, btw) and a handful of vendors just handing out swag.
I will be honest and say that the first few years I ran this race - 2006, 07, 08 - there were some issues that were a little off putting. I would often talk people out of doing it back in those early days, especially newer runners. But I've run this race twice in the last 3 years and they've really stepped up their game. I would absolutely recommend this one to anyone looking for a fun summer race (summer races can be tough to find) with a lot of great goodies.
Here's my current race schedule for the rest of the year:
August 23, 2014 –
Nocturnal Lands 5K
September 6, 2014 – Superhero
Scramble
September 13, 2014 –
Savage Race
October 5, 2014 –
Tough Mudder
October 11, 2014 –
Rugged Maniac
November 1, 2014 –
Spartan Beast
November 23, 2014 –
Route 66 Half Marathon – not registered
yet
I'm not sure about Route 66 yet - I'm trying to find a street half to run this fall because I really want to try and get as close to a 2 hour half as I can with these improving legs. I'm still planning on a full marathon in March 2015, so once I get past the Spartan Beast I'll be back to focusing on some of my street running and getting some miles under my belt. I've been keeping them in the 13-15 range this summer and will be trying to get some 17 milers under my belt in the next month or two.
Starting to think about 2015!
