Run Steff Run: St. Louis Rock 'n' Roll Guest Recap

I had signed up for the Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis 5k and half marathon via Groupon, but then life got in the way and I just needed a weekend OFF!

I noticed that one of the runners I follow, Run Steff Run, was coming to St. Louis from Pittsburgh to run Rock 'n' Roll this year.  I asked her if I could share her race recap with you since I was skipping the races this year and because she would be able to offer a different perspective on the race since she wasn't a local.  Luckily, she agreed!

So for your reading pleasure, I would like to share the Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis 5k and half marathon race recaps from Run Steff Run's perspective:

Out and About in St. Louis

Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis 5k Recap

Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis Half Marathon Recap

Enjoy!

Medals4Mettle St. Louis Chapter Coordinator needed

You have seen me post once or twice about volunteering with Medals4Mettle, where we have visited local children's hospitals to distribute half and full marathon medals to hospitalized children.  Volunteering for the medal distributions has been a rewarding experience and the reactions from  hospital staff, parents, and the medal recipients is well worth the hour or two you take to volunteer.  Our St. Louis Coordinator is searching for her replacement so if you live in the St. Louis area, scroll down.  If you don't but are interesting in finding your closest chapter, click here.

Mary Ruth Casey is the current St. Louis Coordinator.  The amount of time she spends per month varies and is totally flexible.  She also currently has quite a few donated medals and ribbons for the new coordinator to start off with.  She has already developed relationships with several of our local hospitals, so she will have the contact information ready for her replacement.

Click here to see photos from Medals4Mettle on Facebook to learn more about what happens during the medal distributions.

If you are interested in the St. Louis Coordinator opening, contact Mary Ruth Casey at 636-524-5038 or tmrcasey@gmail.com for more details.  If I wasn't working so much and in the midst of planning a destination wedding, I would have snagged this great opportunity already!

Have you looked yourself up on Athlinks?

By now you have likely seen articles or ads on the internet telling you to "Google yourself" and see what happens, right.  Well have you been on www.athlinks.com yet and typed in your name to see what happens? Luckily, my name is fairly unique and I also caught onto this website fairly early on, so it was easier to sort through the results when I created my account.  But when you type in my step-dad's name without any filters for example, you get over 2,000 results!

A week or so after each race I go to the Athlinks website and type in my name to see if my new results show up in the unclaimed section.  When they do, I just log in and claim them to add them to my existing list of results.  This allows your results to be saved in one place so that you don't have to go to each race's website to see your results.  You can also quickly see your PR's in all distances.

Click here to learn more about how your race results appear on this website.  Create your account today and start following your running buddies too.

MO' Cowbell 5K Race Recap

You know my opinion on this race will be a bit biased because I am a MO' Bassador, but I am still going to be as thorough and honest as possible.  This is a great race not only for locals, but also out-of-towners because St. Charles is so close to the airport and Main Street is such a fun place to visit....and there are two casinos close by if you are feeling really lucky.

The Highlights:

•           Great pre-race communication via email and social media.  Emails were both informative and entertaining.  The pre-race emails were also broken into more bite-sized emails so that they weren't too overwhelming.
•       The expo was at St. Charles Community College, which was a bit of a distance from the actual race course, but it also allowed ample parking.  Back when the expo was at Lindenwood University, I remember parking being an issue.
•       The expo had a lot of interesting and unique vendors.  The Brooks trailer and the Alter G treadmill experience were outside in the parking lot.
•       You could sign up to become a MO' Bassador at the expo!
•       I worked the morning shift of packet pick-up on Saturday, and it seemed to go smoothly from my perspective.  Some times were busier than others but I didn't really have too many questions so the process must have been pretty straight forward to runners.
•            Road construction affected our race day drive, but we were alerted to that in pre-race communication as well.
•       Shirt - The shirts this year were made by a company called tasc.  The shirts were very soft and partially made from bamboo.

•      Super generous t-shirt exchange policy -  If when you pick up your shirt it doesn't fit the way you would like, bring it to the shirt exchange tent (near the stage) at Runners Village on race day (sorry not at the ExMO'). If we don't have the shirt size you need, we will order you a shirt and get it to your local Big River Store to pick up.  How many other races do that?  We love our runners!
•       On race day, you were encouraged to arrive at the start early due to the road construction and to get good parking.  We arrived around 6 a.m. for the 8 a.m. 5k and we parked right on Main Street by the shops.  At that time, there was still plenty of parking available.  I knew the gazebo had real restrooms underneath, so we parked pretty much adjacent to the gazebo.
•       I loved that this 5k was part of a longer day of races.  You never felt alone because you were always surrounded by other runners and the cheering at the finish was pretty amazing!  In fact my fiance and I came back around 1 p.m. and there were still tons of people in the runner's village and around the finish line.  
•       Did anyone notice the similarities between the Rio 2016 Olympic medals and the MO' Cowbell medals?  

•        The MO' Cowbell PR bell!  I didn't get to ring it though :(  At least I "won" a gold medal!

•       There was a coffee food truck this year!

U.S. Air Force 5K Race Recap

So let me just start this recap by saying that I really do love this race, but I had a better experience when I ran the 5K and half marathon in 2011.

Registration was a breeze and the pre-race communication was excellent.  The expo was packed with unique vendors and other races that I would not have heard about or been interested in had I not interacted with them in person.  Picking up my packets, since I had registered for both the 5k and the half marathon, was quick and easy.

After packet pick-up, we checked into our hotel and relaxed before the 5k that evening.  This downtime gave me an opportunity to look through my goodie bags.  Included in our bags were our race shirts that were a different color for each race, iron-on race patches, race hats, and a race weekend booklet.

I didn't post pictures of the 5k and half marathon shirts above because I wanted to mention that my half marathon shirt from the 2011 race is one of my absolute favorite race shirts.  I still have it and have worn it in so many races through the years.  That year, we received gender-specific New Balance shirts that were 100% polyester, but had a jersey texture and a breathable feel.

Then this year, we received my absolute least favorite shirt, also 100% polyester.  The shirts came in bags and were folded with tissue paper so that the screen print would not transfer to the folded part of the shirt.  They feel awful and not breathable at all.  In fact, the care tag says "professional dry clean recommended."  Are you kidding me?  A race shirt recommending dry cleaning, that's crazy!

Needless to say, I am very disappointing in the shirts this year.  So much so, that I probably will never wear them.

The 5k was scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. but due to road and parking lot closures, we decided to leave at 5:15 p.m. in order to arrive well before the start.  We arrived with plenty of time to relax, people watch, and snap a photo of the post-race food.  There were at least two more rows of food not shown in the photo below, so there was plenty!

As the minutes passed, I noticed that the sky to the West was looking dark and ominous, so I opted to run our phones back to the car just in case.  Then as the start time drew closer, the announcer mentioned that they were monitoring the bad weather heading our way and they may start the race early as a result.

There were no corrals, just a wheelchair start that took place a few minutes before the rest of us were released.  The waiting area for the start was cramped between the start line and the finishing line.  My guess is that the course would either be slightly too short or too long if they just used the same spot for the start and the finish line, but the placement was awkward and wouldn't have allowed for a corral start anyway.

We were underway at 6:30 p.m. and the first mile was fine.  Then as we looped back towards the main part of campus, I could see lightning.  You may remember that I ran my last half marathon in the rain, so I knew they would let us continue to run if it started to rain while we were on the course.  But when I saw lightning, I began to wonder if we would be pulled off the course for our safety.  Everyone just kept running and the volunteers didn't seem concerned, so I just followed the crowd.  I think we had just hit mile two when we moved from the road to sidewalks on campus that were only two, maybe three runners wide at most.  This was not a small 5k, so this area quickly became congested with runners and you couldn't really pass in certain areas because of the congestion.  Luckily, the further we went on campus, the more the runners were able to spread out once again.  As we continued running, the sky got darker and the lightning became more frequent and I think this made me run faster than I would have otherwise.

I ended up finishing just before my step-dad and just before the rain started, but my mom was still on the course.  After my step-dad and I grabbed our post-race snacks, we started hearing announcements that lightning was in the area (obviously) and we were to take shelter either in our cars or in the Nutter Center, but there was NO mention about the runners still on the course or the volunteers during any of those announcements.  What were they supposed to do?  Since volunteers were still waiting at the finish line and more runners kept coming, we just waited in the rain and lightning until we saw my mom in the distance.  There were still other runners behind her, which seemed so strange since they kept telling the rest of us to seek shelter. Aren't they supposed to pick up runners off of the course when bad weather threatens their safety?  I know they have for other races.  It was just bizarre.

My mom was clearly in pain as she finished.  She had just had a knee replacement last Fall and her bad knee really bothered her during this race, but she finished.  She received her medal from a high-ranking Air Force member (I couldn't tell you his rank) and we finally headed to the safety of our car.  Between the sweat and the rain, we all were soaked!

We decided to grab a light, post-race dinner at Panera (a.k.a. St. Louis Bread Company as we call it in St. Louis) since we received coupons in our virtual race packet, and we recapped our individual race experiences.  All three of us were surprised by the fact that they were telling finishers and their families to take shelter, yet they weren't pulling volunteers or the remaining runners off the course.  We also don't remember there being as many strollers in the 2011 5k.  It's great that parents of young children are active, but the course became so congested with runners in some areas that it caused issues when the runners with strollers would try to pass and there just wasn't that much room.  In fact, my mom was hit by strollers multiple times during the race.

Since my mom was clearly in pain post-race and Saturday's race would require quite a bit of walking and standing for both runners and spectators, I opted to sleep in and just workout at the hotel instead of running the half.  I had planned on walking the entire half anyway since my spring back injury still haunts me at times, my training was not where it needed to be, and the race was also walker-friendly (I would have had 6 hours to finish).   But during one of my training walks, it took me roughly three hours to go 10 miles and I just didn't want my parents to have to kill time and wait on me that long, especially since my mom was in pain.  I do remember reading about runner only shuttles to the start from the Nutter Center, so I probably could have gotten to the race on my own, but I really wanted my family to be there so I didn't explore this option any further.  Maybe I will keep that in mind for next time.

Needless to say, the weekend did not turn out as we had originally planned and I can honestly say that my 2011 experience was far better.  The medals were still nice and I enjoyed my weekend in Dayton seeing family and Wright Brothers sights, so it was still worth the nearly 6 hour journey.  I will likely do this race again, but want to wait a few years before I make the trek again.

Some areas for improvement that I saw for the 5K:

• Corral start needed since there are so many runners
• Select your "category" at registration like they do at the Indianapolis 500 Festival 5K and potentially have a "stroller" category



• Larger area for runners to line up for the start
• Have separate kids races of shorter distances so that the kiddos aren't forced to do a full 3.1 miles (I saw several kiddos being forced to run by their parents and they were NOT happy)
• Separate stroller start as the very last corral to allow the field to spread out more before they come through
• Have a plan for bad weather that includes keeping the volunteers and those still on the course properly informed
• Go back to the gender-specific, jersey-style shirts that don't recommend dry cleaning

The volunteers were amazing and I applaud them for continuing to cheer us on even as the weather took a turn for the worse.  Volunteers rock!

Hotel recommendations:

• Fairfield Inn - Dayton Fairborn
• Hampton Inn - Dayton Fairborn
• Homewood Suites - Dayton fairborn
• Holiday Inn - Fairborn/I-675 (this is where we stayed)

All of the above hotels are walkable to the expo and 5k start.

Remember to add your race reviews on BibRave.

I Love Forest Park 5K

This morning I ran the I Love Forest Park 5k with two of my co-workers. I run with one of the co-workers every Saturday at Tower Grove Park and the other co-worker is studying to become a certified yoga instructor and she is also a retired skater from the St. Louis Women's Flat Track Roller Derby.  My step-dad was also in town to get his outfit for our destination wedding in March, so he decided to run too.

We arrived around 6:30 a.m. because I wanted to be able to park in the lot closest to the visitor's center and the start/finish line.  This gave us plenty of time to use the restrooms and participate in the pre-race yoga session.  Pre-race announcements mentioned that there were over 700 runners this year and that today's race is the only race where the proceeds benefit Forest Park.

At 7:30 a.m. we were off and running.  We decided to run easy 3:1 intervals which allowed me some time to take photos along the way.  If you haven't ever been to Forest Park, it is definitely worth a visit.

Our time was not anywhere near a PR, but it was a fun journey.  Post race food included water, wheat rolls, bananas, and coffee.  Lululemon was also on hand for a pop up sale with 40% of their proceeds being donated to Forest Park.

We left the park right around the time that the kids race was getting ready to start.  I wanted to take my mom and stepdad to a restaurant they had never tried, so I took them to Kingside Diner in the Central West End.  This restaurant is located across the street from the World Chess Hall of Fame and adjacent to the Chess Club and it was a very short drive from the start/finish line of the race.

Great for people watching

Multiple tv's for the sports fans

Breakfast burrito

Quinoa Pancakes

Even though I felt absolutely disgusting after the race, there were plenty of other runners at this restaurant so I never felt under-dressed or out of place.  Keep this place in mind for a great post-race meal.

Have a great week!

Remember to post your race reviews on Bib Rave.

Diva Dash - St. Louis 5k

I celebrated my birthday yesterday by running (well jogging/walking) a very hot and humid 5K in Forest Park.  I ran the inaugural Diva Dash - St. Louis 5k back in 2014 and I was excited to run it again in 2016.  This year, you had the option of not receiving a t-shirt to save $5, so I decided to go that route this time.  You could also get a $20 refund if four of your runner friends registered via your link.  I tried to get a co-worker to run with me, but it wasn't meant to be so I ran it solo.

There was a packet pick-up option Friday afternoon at Big River Running Company or you could wait until race day.  I opted to get to Forest Park early on race day for packet pick-up.  When I arrived at the Upper Muny Parking Lot around 7:00 a.m. there was plenty of parking and packet pick-up was a breeze.  The weather was miserably hot, humid, and rainy which is most likely the reason why there were less runners this year.

Before I knew it, the race had started.  The atmosphere was very positive, happy, and supportive.  There were many groups of ladies running together, which made me wish I would have organized a group myself.  All ages and abilities were present along with plenty of tutus and tiaras.  The course was different from 2014 but it still gave runners amazing views of Forest Park.  The last 1/4 mile was uphill, but you were greeted with cheers, a medal, and water once you finally reached the finish line.  Bananas and Kashi bars were available to runners as were a print out of your results.  I didn't stay for the Lil' Princess Girls Run this year, but there were plenty of young girls getting ready for their race as ours was finishing.

The third running of the St. Louis Diva Dash was just as great as the inaugural run, and I definitely recommend that you check it out.  If you missed the St. Louis race this year you can still run in Nixa, MO or Tulsa, OK.  Otherwise, check out the website to watch for 2017 dates.

Well, someone had to be last!

I used to only run half marathons and marathons because I had one speed, slow and steady.  I just didn't want to "waste" money on shorter distances, especially if there wasn't a medal at the end.  But much like my pace, I slowly came around and changed my mind.  Living in an urban area means that there are 5k's and 10k's nearly every weekend, many of them with a unique concept or a great course that made appealing.  So I started incorporating races short than 13.1 miles into my schedule, but I never trained any differently (when I was actually training rather than winging it) and I had no goal time.  I just wasn't fast and I told myself that I just wanted to finish.  The funny thing is, I kind of used to be fast (or at least faster) and I didn't even realize it.

According to my Athlinks results, my 2nd race ever back in 2009 was a 5K.  I had just run the George Washington Parkway 10 Miler the two weeks prior and then I decided to run the Pacers Running Festival 5K.  My time was 28:51 but that was back when I lived on Capitol Hill and my running route was so amazing that I ran 3 - 5 times per week.  I can't even imaging that pace now.

Fast Forward (or in my case, slowly progress in a forward motion) 7 years and my last 5k was over 42 minutes.  I had one of the moments when you realize that you just have to do something other than reminisce about what used to be.  I did this to myself.  I let myself get stuck in this rut that I have been in ever since I moved from DC back to the Midwest.  I love St. Louis and I love being closer to my family again, but the scenery just isn't as awe-inspiring here.  That doesn't mean that I should completely lack motivation to run until race day though.  I love traveling for races and I love completing races, so the missing piece (or basically the entire puzzle) is just getting that love of the typical daily run back.  Terms like "speedwork" and "tempo runs" had become a foreign language to me and it was time to relearn everything I had forgotten as I sunk deeper into my rut.

My solution arrived one day in my inbox and I convinced a co-worker to also join in my quest.  We both signed up for Big River Running Company's Summer Speedwork program and May 25th was our 1st night.  When you registered, you selected your group according to you pace goal.  Even with my 2009 PR of 28:51, I still would have been on the border between Group 4 (8:22 - 9:00 pace) and Group 5 (9:20 and above pace).  But my more recent 5k times definitely landed me in Group 5, but luckily my co-worker was in Group 5 with me.

This was our workout for the 1st week:
May 24-25 (Week 1) 
Group 1-3: 3-5 x 1200m @ A/T*(60 sec jog recovery) 
Group 4-5: 3-5 x 800m @ A/T*(60 sec walk recovery) 

We are going to start with a stamina-building workout intended to increase lactate threshold. Raising lactate threshold enables one to race faster/further before fatigue sets in. This is a workout you can “add” to your training program (in addition to the Tuesday/Wednesday night track workouts). They are called cruise-intervals (popularized by running coach Jack Daniels). Benefits are similar to tempo runs. Don't turn your threshold-pace workouts into competitive efforts; *threshold-pace should feel "comfortably hard" (10K pace + 15-20 seconds).

Again, I don't yet have a fast pace so I just ran each lap at a pace that I would normally run at which meant that each 800 meter round took over 6 minutes to complete.  We were the last finishers of the slowest group with each 800 meter repeat.  It was an eye-opener/ego crusher/turning point.  What is nice about track workouts is that even when you are the slowest, you don't feel like you are last because there are always other runners around you.  There were always other runners and the group coaches encouraging us, so finishing each round felt like this:

We had the option to run up to five rounds of the 800 meters, but we decided to stop at three and stretch.  That experience made us both realize that we need to get serious about our training and not just completely quit running after our goal race, only to have to start at the very beginning again when the next training session comes around.  I take total responsibility for my slowness and I needed to be last to realize how far I had let myself slide.  I have a lot of work to do, but this was hopefully the first step towards a faster finishing time.

I will keep you posted as training continues.  Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Race 13.1 St. Louis Volunteer Experience

The day started very early, but it was totally worth the pre-dawn alarm.  Today I volunteered as a course monitor for the Inaugural Race 13.1 5k and half marathon.

My station was right at an intersection where both races take their 1st turn and then just before runners cross mile 3 or 13.  My favorite point of the morning was when the half marathoners were approaching me to make their first turn,  It was the coolest thing watching all the runners approaching in one long wave.  I wish I would have taken a picture, but I was frozen in amazement.  They just kept coming and coming until I saw the sweeper, literally carrying a broom.  Not long after that, the 5k runners were approaching.  Again, very cool to watch them running past with all that energy and excitement.

Once all the 5k runners were on their way, I had a few quiet moments until the fastest 5k runners were running back past me as they headed towards the second part of their course.  Then there was the rush of 5k runners and then the first few 5k finishers ran past me for a third time on their way to the finish line.

The volunteer packet I received for this race not only included my neon t-shirt, but also had detailed instructions about my station including approximate times I should expect the initial wave of runners, the 1st runners from each race, and then the final runners from each race.  It was pretty much spot on.  The 5k runners were finishing up when the 1st half marathoners were passing me to finish around 8:15 a.m., which is insanely fast.  Then came the pretty constant wave of half marathoners.  Luckily, I had a great police officer with me since the course was still open to traffic and not everyone was paying attention to the runners around them.  If they completely missed my glowing neon volunteer shirt, they didn't miss the officer and his patrol car on my left.

My volunteer shift was scheduled for 6:30 - 10:30 a.m. but as 10:30 a.m. came and went, I noticed that the sweeper had not come yet.  By this point, the police officer had left so I just watched and blocked the road for the remaining runners to finish.  Just before 11:00 a.m. I saw the sweeper and a few other runners.  At that point, I thought it was safe to leave.  I could have left at 10:30 as scheduled, but I know first hand how it feels to finish when it seems like everything is being packed up and the crowd support is already gone.  I didn't mind, I just kept shaking my cowbell!  What was ironic about waiting for the sweeper, was that she actually works for the same agency that I do.

I followed the last group of runners down to the finish line to grab some snacks, and they still had plenty of water, bananas, pizza, and beer left.  I was thanked multiple times by race staff, spectators, and runners which made the experience totally worthwhile.  On top of all that, I earned enough "race bucks" today to run a Race 13.1 race at any of their locations!!!!!  That is an amazing deal considering that it has taken me 2 and 1/2 years of volunteering to earn a free half marathon through the GO! St. Louis volunteer program.

Check out Race 13.1's remaining 2016 races here, and please consider giving back to the community you love so much!

Runners, also be sure to post race reviews for all of your races on Bib Rave.

Bondi Band Discount Code

I received an email this week letting me know that I was selected to become a Bondi Band Ambassador!!!!  Bondi Band not only makes headbands, but they also make compression socks, hats, neck gaiters, arm sleeves, etc.  I had just picked up a few more of their headbands at the Illinois Marathon expo, but my 1st ever Bondi Band was purchased at Walt Disney World for my first marathon in 2010.

 

You can order their designs or customize your own.  Just go to www.bondiband.com and use code Run4Medals at checkout to save 10% on every order!