2009 Race for the Cure Race Report

Results (based on Guntime)
29:00 mins (9:20 min per mile average)
Overall 293/620
Age Group 27/70
Overall Female 129/367


I know, this is a mighty long post for a 5K race report... If you want to read something more epic than a 5K race report, why don't you go back an re-read the report for the Blue Ridge Relay! :-)


Terry got up at 5AM for his long run. He is currently in marathon training and wanted to meet up with the 6AM group at Fleet Feet. Him getting ready woke me up, even though I could at least sleep until 6.30AM. At one point, I actually got back to sleep and when the alarm went off it was really time for me to get cracking. I prepared all my stuff the night before, so I just had to get dressed, throw the final items in the bag and head out of the door. I wanted to be at the venue early, so that I was able to park in the parking garage and I knew they are going to shut down the roads at 7.30AM. Well, either I was a couple of minutes too late or they never allowed parking directly at the ICAR building this time, so I ended up half a mile up the road on the Carolina First parking lot. Now I was WAY early (the race started at 9:20AM). I didn't have my BIB yet and was waiting for my team captain to get there for.... Breakfast time then... Had some sips from my water bottle and two small Luna bars... Checked Facebook and then started reading the magazine that I had the sense to bring along. When my team captain called me, I walked down to the Hubbell parking lot to meet up with him and get my BIB... By then the rain subsided to a drizzle... No complaints from me here... Made the final clothing decision and made my way to the start/ finish area.

The start/ finish was a sea of all shades of pink. There were tons and tons of sponsor booths that handed out goodies like capes, t-shirts, ribbons, cabs, bags and so on and so forth. I walked through the area looking around... Passed the information center and the area where they lined up the survivors separately by how long their cancer has been in remission. It was great to see that there were so many survivors out there, smiling, laughing, hugging their kids and husbands. Some of them later walking the 5K, some of them running it. Wearing their survivor t-shirts with pride. This was their day... They show us, that this disease can be beat. But even more important, that we have to find a cure, that people don't get sick in the first place. I would have liked to collect some of the goodies, but since the car was half a mile away and I didn't have a support crew with me to keep the stuff while I was running, I had to pass...


Of course I visited our good friend porta-john before jogging up and down the millenium ave a little to warm up. When the start was just a couple of minutes away, I walked to the start line and tried to position myself. As usual, I did a pretty crappy job with it and so I spend the first mile slaloming around people... On the other hand, I go out too fast on my races anyways and my first mile has been my fasted of the three this time again, so maybe it was better for me to start in the back.


The race course was a total of six rolling hills and the finish line is on a downhill, which is always nice. Throughout the race, people cheered each other on, the volunteers on the drink station did a great job too. Since the route is out and back, you were passing the people in front/ behind you on the other side of the road. Those races are always a little distracting for me, because I tend to scan the crowd for familiar faces instead of concentrating on my running. Just at the beginning of mile three, my left hamstring started to act up. It has been bothering me all week and all of a sudden it got really bad. Needle in cotton, needle in cotton (-> ChiRunning method) was my mantra over the next couple of minutes and things seem to improve. When I climbed the final hill, I looked at my watch at decided to go all out in order to make it under 29:00 mins. Shortly after I passed my chiropractor, that was walking the course, and she cheered me on, which really gave me another motivation boost. It is nice to hear your name in the crowd! :-) I crossed the finish line and was really pleased with the time that I had on the Garmin (28:21 mins, I said I lined up way in the back once again!)... Right after the finish line the hamstring got even worse, so I just grabbed a cup of water and then walked/ jogged back to the car and then stretched there.

Picture is from GreenvilleOnline.com


This was a good race for me personally and it was amazing to see, how many people do have the fight against cancer close to their hearts. This is good news for all of us, because it drastically increases the chances that there will be a cure soon.

Sunday Afternoon Hike

First things first. I had a good race yesterday, which really surprise me since running wasn't going too well lately. The official race results are not posted yet, but my time and distance according to the Garmin was 28:21 mins over 3.16 miles. That is an 8:58 per mile average and for me, it's pretty good. The race report will follow, when the official results have been published.

After the race I stopped by the Sunshine Cycle Shop to check out the Sale that they are having. Since my birthday is coming up and my parents always want me to get something for it (with their money), I ordered myself a trainer for the bike.... Off season can come now! :-)

Other than those two things, the whole Saturday pretty much was a blur. We have been so busy to get stuff done around the house and there was so much to do... I know, not very glamorous. When we finally headed out to dinner, I didn't even know where the day went. I was in bed sleeping by 9.30 PM last night... My party girl days are definitely over and I don't even miss them!

So today, we finally saw some sunshine after it had been raining for the last couple of days. That just felt great and we wanted to make good use of it. We decided to go for a hike and since we felt adventurous ;-) we didn't choose nearby Paris Mountain State Park, but headed to Jones Gap State Park. Neither Terry nor I have ever visited this park before and we certainly were impressed right away. The facilities from what we saw where in great shape and the trail are very good maintained. The only thing that I thought needed some improvement was the trail map they publish on their official website. That one is pretty much useless. But they had a big trail map right at the visitor center that resembled this one here.

While looking at the trail map, we decided to hike up to Rainbow Falls and if we still have time (shooting for 2 hours of hiking) and felt like it, we could even go to Jones Falls. When we looked at the map, we didn't pay attention to the mileage of the trails. We started out on the Jones Gap Trail and then turn on the Rainbow Falls Trail. It got steeper right away and we still followed that creek that we started out with. As already mentioned, the trails are super duper maintained. It got continuously steeper and we had to climb over boulders and little streams crossing the trails. Over bridges, stone and wood steps and up up up the mountain. After walking for an hour we started to wonder, if this trail is ever going to end anywhere and then we finally heard the water fall. Later we found out that the Rainbow Fall Trail is 1.6 miles one way in addition to the portion that we hiked on the Jones Gap Trail. Good that we are all in shape and had our hiking shoes on... Dinner was well deserved after that one! :-) And no, we went right back to the car after getting down the mountain. Jones Falls have to wait until our next visit.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure! :-)


View from the first bridge we crossed at the beginning of the Jones Gap State Park trail system.


Steps carved out of the stone.


Steps out of stone between to big rocks... Terry and his favorite walking stick look like they are on a mission! :-)


The sprinkles of water felt good after the hike.


The top of Rainbow Falls... This view was worth the whole trip.

What's your Sport?

This week I tried out the Eastside YMCA. I took the cycle class on Monday, Intense Fitness on Tuesday and Body Pump yesterday. Looking at the schedules for the upstate Y's, the Eastside seemed to be the only place that offers early morning (6AM and 5.45AM) classes*. From what I saw this week, it's pretty much the same crowd no matter what class it is and that's nice and easy for the new kid. Almost everyone in yesterday's class was complaining about the same soreness due to the Tuesday class (too many hamstring exercises).... Shared pain is half the pain.

*Correction: Actually, the Caine Halter as well as the Travelers Rest Y do have early morning classes, I just plain oversaw this fact.

As said, it seemed to be pretty much the same folks in those classes, so the instructor welcomed me personally and asked for my name... The instructor on Tuesday introduced herself personally as well after the class... So much friendlyness is almost suspicious... JUST KIDDDING... It's really nice! :-) After yesterday's class, the instructor asked me, what my sport is and I just answered "triathlons", because that pretty much sums up my workout routine these days.

That got me thinking this morning on my way to work... Yes, I did one triathlon in my first season, but does that make it my sport???

I tried out a lot during my school days and was never a complete failure at anything. That even holds true to the time when I started gaining weight. I still was one of the first people to be picked in a school PE team sport setting and actually was sooooooo close to receive a prize at my graduation for my performance in PE, if there wouldn't have been this one semster that I "only" got a B+ instead of A- or better.* There was really not much I didn't at least try for one season. The sport, that I was dedicated to for the longest time was competitive gymnastics. On second place we have several years of handball (the European Handball, not the American handball) and dancing/ ballet. Throw in a season here and there of athletics and table tennis and you start to get the picture.

*Short explanation here: In Germany the last two years (12th and 13th grade) of high school determine your final graduation grades. Those two years are broken up in four semesters. In order to get the PE prize, you have to have an A- or better in each semester.

When I started getting back into shape, the triathlon thing really came very natural and completely unplanned. I always enjoyed to swim and actually swam before I learned how to ride a bike. Same thing when I finally started to bike. In rural Germany as a kid, having a bike was what you needed to get to the community pool, your friend's house, organ lessons etc. The running portion is Terry's "fault". He always told me to get into running, because it will make a huge difference in my weigh loss efforts... And he was right about that. All of a sudden, I had everything together that was needed to do a triathlon and it was the carrot, I was chasing until race day in May of this year. Even though I just ended up doing one tri this season, the tri sports just give me a lot of joy and a variety to my workouts that feels healthy and balanced.... So yes, I am a triathlete and a cyclist and a runner (I really want to love running again!) and a Salsa dancer... But how does all of that fit into a one minute conversation between the end of the early morning class and heading out to start the day? So as of now, I'll stick to triathlon as my sport!

On other news: I heard this morning, that the Gamecocks won a big game last night. I concluded that there will be plenty of donuts in the office and chose to skip breakfast in favor of the donuts. Well, our donuts supplier took the day off, so I didn't have breakfast and didn't have donuts... Fortunately, I always keep granola bars in my desk drawer and had the sense to at least pack some fruit.

Tomorrow is the Race for the Cure at the CU-ICAR campus in Greenville. Why don't you come out there and cheer for the people that will be walking and running the 5K course. Even better, just sign up for it and join the crowd! :-) The online registration is already closed, but you can still sign up in person before the race! Or if you won't be able to make it out there, please donate for this cause... As of now, they are at around 60% of their fundraising goal, every gift is appreciated, no matter how big or small.

After the Race is Before the Race

Before writing this post, the famous Sepp Herberger quote "Nach dem Spiel is vor dem Spiel" (eng.: After the game is before the game.) was bouncing around in my head. I always loved this sentence, even in my non-athletics days, because it contains a very simple truth that can be applied to pretty much any field in your life. Sure it's great to have accomplished something, but most of the time ending something, means to start working towards something else. Only because you just finished this huge project at work doesn't mean you won't show up the next day taking on new challenges - right? Or do you want to end up like Wile E. Coyote in the picture (taken from Runner's World blog) above? ;-)

Obviously, the adventure of doing the Blue Ridge Relay is still not quite digested and I caught myself chuckling several times in the car on my way home from work just thinking of: the "safety thong", "Kerrie would never do this!", "You live on M&Ms and TUMS right?"... For some of the things you just had to be in van #2 otherwise it doesn't make any sense. You would think that so shortly after the relay, we wouldn't want to see or hear anything from each other, but yesterday there were already e-mails flying back and forth, talking about how much fun we had and to wrap up some organizational stuff. In the middle of all this, Brian (aka Guz) brought up the idea to venture out doing another relay and within minutes we basically decided to do the American Odyssey Relay (AOR) from Gettysburg PA to Washington D.C. end of April 2010 and over half of the BRR team already committed to join in the fun... And the rest will come along over the next couple of weeks - Sure thing! :-)

As promised, here are some links to race reports about the Blue Ridge Relay of other teams, in case you are interested. (Link list is taken from http://www.runningrelays.com)

• Run, Theoden, Run
• Foot Rx
• Coach K Is Going Somewhere
• Team 4Tunate (To Have 2 More Runners)
• Screaming Mountain Goats
• Run Bob Run Bob
• Ingram Running Team
• Just Kev.in

While I happily jumped on the bandwagon to do the AOR yesterday, I also finally decided NOT to do the American Warrior Triathlon this coming Saturday. Several reasons played into this decision and on top of the list is certainly that I wasn't able to train properly in the last three weeks. Even though I am not competing for trophies, I want to at least compete against myself and I don't feel like I would be able to… This was a tough one, because it means that I only did one triathlon in my first tri season and my plans at the beginning of the year were much more ambiguous. I guess, I have to do a better job planning my 2010 season. :-)

But it's still "before the race" for me because of the Race for the Cure 5K coming up on September 26th. I know, it "just" a 5K, but I like doing them… It's a nice distance, you don't have to put hours and hours of training into the preparation but it still keeps you from slacking. Also, it supports the great cause of fighting the fight against cancer and this is a topic that touches all of our lives in one way or another sooner or later. It's not too late to donate, click here for my fundraising page. Besides, I still have unfinished business with this race course around the CU-ICAR campus. I did the Candlelight Run end of June of this year. It was still over 90 degrees when the gun went off at 9 PM… The humidity was out of this world. I never suffered that much on a 5K and I never posted a worse time for this distance… Not this time…

Oh and I almost forgot, the official results of the Blue Ridge Relay are out.

Team: Do Not Resuscitate
Time: 31:47:53 hours
Placing Overall: 75/106
Placing in the Open Category: 33/45

Once again, great job team! The BRR is considered one of the most challenging relays and we jumped into the challenge with both feet as complete relay newbies and made it happen. So proud of our accomplishment!