Officially Registered!

I am pleased to announce that I am officially running in the Charlotte Thunder Road Marathon next Saturday, December 11.  So, how exactly did we get here?

Back in the summer, I made a commitment to start running to stay in shape, eat cleaner, and get to the gym.  I kept putting off the gym part, however, and it quickly became apparent that I was going to be a full-time runner again.  My goal at the time was to train to get into decent shape, then train hard to get into racing shape so I could compete in a lot of the local road races, most of which are 5k or 10k. I knew Eggers had already planned to do the local marathon.

Dan had one marathon under his belt already - the Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon from this past February.  I killed some time at work by reading his race recap, and I found myself overcome with inspiration.  I thought about how the marathon training would include some heavy mileage but would actually be a lot less intense than training for 5k, and could be a great way to build up a base before switching to lower distances.  Then, I noticed the date of this year's race:  it was my birthday.  I was in.

Let's get into the details of this race and how I plan to perform:

History

Charlotte has been putting on a marathon since the late 1970s, when the running boom was in full swing here in the United States.  The winners were regularly running under 2:20, which is elite by any standard.  The Charlotte Observer Marathon suffered a scandal, however, when the race director was convicted of mail fraud about then years ago and the Observer pulled its sponsorship, effectively ending the race.  In 2005, another marathon was introduced, called "Thunder Road," with an attempt to build a NASCAR theme.  Boogity-boogity, let's go racin'!! (that's Darrell Waltrip, kids).  Last year's winner was Jordan Kinley, who recently announced that he's going to run it again.  You can read his excellent recap of last year's race here.

The Course


The Thunder Road Expo is held next Thursday and Friday at the Charlotte Convention Center.  That's where I'll go to pick up my packet.  I skipped out on the course preview runs that Run For Your Life sponsored, but I did take the opportunity to drive most of the course ten days ago.  Naturally, we will start and finish uptown, with the starting line being somewhere around Tryon and 1st Streets, which is exactly where we started for the Komen Race a couple months ago (Was that really a couple months ago? Wow!).  From there we will leave uptown on 3rd Street and make our way over to 4th, which becomes Randolph, then turn down a road called Colville that takes us to Providence.  We go away from town on Providence before touring the affluent Foxcroft neighborhood at the edge of Southpark and Myers Park.  This part of the course is essentially my back yard.  I have run down Colville and these sections of Providence and Randolph more times than I count in the last eight months.  Obviously, that's a good thing - but this gets better.  We leave the Southpark area by way of Sharon Road, turn down a street called Chilton and do the Queens Road loop before heading to Morehead.  This section is all a part of my 7-mile loop that I've done quite a few times recently.  I expect fantastic support from the neighborhoods throughout this part of the race.

I had some trouble staying on track with my car, because the map isn't labeled that well on the site, but the halfway point is somewhere on Morehead Street.  This is where things will get interesting; suddenly, there won't be nearly as many runners (there is also a half-marathon which uses the same course, I believe).  The course takes us around South Tryon and through the South End area after leaving Dilworth, and we run along Mint Street, headed back uptown.  This will be a neat stretch because we run right towards Bank of America Stadium.  From here we head north on 4th Street and come back up Trade, right past the arena.  At this point, I plan to take my 3rd and final gel packet, although I will probably have a 4th one on hand just in case.  The 18-mile mark is somewhere around the arena.

We leave uptown again, this time on Caldwell Street, and head towards NoDa.  I am really looking forward to this part of the course because I have always wondered what it would be like to get shot at in the middle of a 26.2-mile race.  In all seriousness, this stretch is considered to be the most mentally challenging part of the course because there is no spectator support, the pack continues to thin out, and the area is a bit drab, to put it nicely.  Things will get fun after that, however: I'm told the party crowd gathers in Plaza-Midwood as this course runs right by Thomas Street Tavern and the Penguin.  Spectators have been known to offer drinks to runners, and I'm sure some of the stragglers will take them up on the idea. 

At this point, I decided to head home but I can tell you that we make our way over to Hawthorne Avenue, which features a famously awful hill, and from there head back uptown to the finish line near the convention center.  Hopefully I will still be alive at this point.

Objective

When this training cycle began a few months ago I figured I could run Boston Marathon-qualifying time and I set that as a goal.  That time is 3 hours, 10 minutes - I'm told they accept 3:10:59 - or 7:15 pace per mile.  That seemed awfully daunting back in September and I thought about adjusting the goal to around 3:20 or so.  Then, something happened:  I started running really well, and Boston Q seemed possible again.  Then, I started running even better and began entertaining crazy ideas of breaking 3 hours.  Look, things would have to go really well for me to break 3 hours.  That's a 6:52 mile for 26.2 miles.  Not only would I have to run very, very well, but I also wouldn't be able to afford any extended bathroom breaks or stretching sessions during the race.  I have decided that 3:00 would be the ultimate goal but 3:05 more reasonable, and if things don't go as well as I hope I will be more than happy with the 3:10/Boston time.

So, that's that.  I do believe my training has prepared me for this thing.  I still feel a little banged up but I think I have time to switch to a new pair of shoes and I believe that will help, so stay tuned!