City of Oaks Half-Marathon (Wake County, North Carolina)

We drove to Raleigh, NC this weekend so that I can run the City of Oaks Half-Marathon. My wife went to school here at North Carolina State University and still has friends and fond memories in the area. After spending most of Saturday visiting with some of her closest friends, I went to sleep early at our hotel knowing that I had to rise well before sunrise for the race. 

After a quick walk through the brisk morning air, I arrived at the start line, where a couple of thousand participants were starting to gather for the collection of races. The event hosts several distances, including a full marathon, half-marathon, 10k, and 5k. I had originally signed up for the full marathon, but I have been struggling recently and thought it wiser to drop down to the half.

As the sun starts to peek over the horizon, we enter the corral and await the starting gun. I seem to have forgotten my earbuds, which is unfortunate. The sound of a steady beat in my ear often keeps me going when I'm having a hard time on a course. I'll have to make do with the music provided along the course. With a countdown from 10, we're on our way. The full, half, and 10k, all start at the same time, while the 5k begins about 20 minutes later.

It's a pretty big race and for the first mile or so, it's just a wall of people running through the streets of downtown Raleigh. After a bit though, the crowd seems to spread out. I'm really struggling during this first couple of miles and the rolling hills here don't seem to help. The course zigzags through the city streets and begins to make it's way through the NC State main campus. As I understand it from my wife, the school actually has four campuses spread around town, but this one is the largest and considered the main campus. 

We continue to zigzag and I start feeling a little better by the end of mile three, but I'm still not feeling it this morning. Sometimes, you just feel hungry and ready to tear up a race course and other times, you ask yourself why you chose to do such a silly thing. I'm feeling the later this morning. That said though, I'm going to push myself to finish the race. I hate leaving things undone.

As we continue on, we soon hit the 5k turn point and a couple of miles further the 10k turn point. The rolling hills continue to be a problem, and I'm starting to feel it in my legs. Thankfully, the compression braces are helping me knees tremendously and I don't feel any specific pain there, though a general achiness is present all over my body. The temperature is good for running this morning. It feels like it's hovering around 45-50 degrees, but there is a cool wind blowing that makes it feel even colder. It does prevent me from sweating profusely though.

Reach the half-marathon turn point, which is a little beyond the eight mile mark, I'm really starting to feel it and I'm beginning to wonder if I will be able to complete the race. Interestingly, they course is set up in such a way that the turn points are not the half-way points of each distance. All of that zigzaging through downtown is not repeated on the return route and so the turn-point is well beyond the half-way point of each race. 

I'm thankful for downhills and I'm able to run these, but the uphill sections, of which there are several are causing me pretty solid pain now and I'm forced to walk many of them. As I return to the downtown area and near the end of the race, each step is painful, but I'm now determined to finish. With one final turn, the finish line comes into view and the last couple of hundred yards are on a downhill. I feel the sense of accomplishment as I run under the banner and check my time.

As a volunteer places my finisher's medal around my neck, I see that my time of 2:45:41 is considerably slower than I had hoped, but again, I realize that this was not a morning where I was feeling it and with the pain now welling up in my legs, I'm just thankful to be done. Now, I just have a short mile walk back to the hotel . . . and it's mostly uphill . . .