I’ve ran this Race every year for the past three years. Back in 2015 I ran the half, and it was hot enough for me to say “Nah I’d rather just stick to the quarter this time of year.” The course is mostly exposed with a few brief stretches through shade. Racing wise, the heat usually makes it pretty brutal.

Except this year, when it was randomly what I would consider next to perfect racing weather. I was in a singlet and shorts but realistically could have used gloves for the first few miles due to the breezy winds. Seriously, gloves in August… It wasn’t something I would have even thought to bring this time of year. The weather made me wish I had signed up for the half this year.

The start had moved locations from one side of the parking lot to the other this year. This threw me off once I got out of my car and walking to the usual starting place but there was nothing there! Luckily it was a short walk to the real start.

I wasn’t expecting much since this race as honestly I’ve felt pretty slow through my 100 miler training for Canal Corridor 100 and after my slow recovery. I was hoping to run a 7:30/mile pace and calling it a day.

As the race started my first 1.5 miles were much faster than I was hoping. I pulled back at the half and quarter course split at around this time. I focused on feeling comfortable through this stretch until I crossed the wooden bridge through the Glacier Ridge Metro Park. Being familiar with the course I knew the finish was nearing closer. My motivation wasn’t high enough to speed up at this point (2 miles to go) but about a half mile later I forced myself to pick up the pace.

I was wondering where the extra distance was going to be added because the course had so far been the same as last year despite the change in the start location which was going to make the course come up a bit short. I pushed on and worked to pass other runners, slowly but surely and focused on running the tangents in the last stretch. As I could see the finish in sight it became clear that the course did not add any extra distance to make up for the changes in starting locations and was going to be a bit short.

I pushed on to finish something in between a 10k and a quarter marathon. I finished 5th female and was very happy with that considering last year I finished 7th female.

Final Time: 46:02

Last Years Time: 47:20

Considering a few factors including nicer temperatures and a shorter course my qualitative analysis is that I was in about the same shape or slightly better than last year at this race. Overall this was much better than how I expected to perform and this brought some joy back into racing this season as I have seen improvements from slow frustrating races to being able to have positive comparisons from my times in previous years.

Race Collections

This race came with a SINGLET!!!! as the race shirt this year for females. I cannot say how happy I was to receive a singlet for a race shirt. I have so many short sleeve t-shirts from races but prefer to run in singlets when the weather allows. It is breathable and true to size. This easily became one of my favorite race shirts!

Additionally this race had a free 11” pizza coupon from Dewey’s Pizza included in the race bag. I did some online researching and discovered that they have vegan pizzas. You can read about my vegan Dewey’s experience here.

Race Photos from Cap City Sports Media