Sunday, April 13, 2014

Sole of the City 10k

Yesterday, hubby and I ran the Sole of the City 10k in Baltimore for the third time. We really like running in Baltimore, Charm City Run does a lot of races down there and they do a fantastic job! For the first time in our running "career" we had to chose between two races - Sole of the City 10k or Yuengling Lager Jogger 5k. We went with the 10k because honestly, there are fewer of them than 5ks.

We got up early to hit McHenry Row for packet pick-up. Our weekend initially was going to be crazy with a food truck event Friday night in York, then the race Sat. morning, then two Orioles games, but our tabby isn't doing well and we chose not to go away this weekend. Which means, we did packet pick-up morning of.

Parking was a bit dicey, but we found a spot not too far away and walked to get our bibs. We walked right into the store and up to the table. We had our bib and jackets within minutes - the ladies received the black jacket, the gentlemen the gray.

We dropped our jackets off at the car and put on our bibs and timing chips. Then we made our way to the start line. We took the obligatory selfie:

For a change, I got all of hubby's head in, but I missed my chin. LOL! Right after this, our friend Ada found us (we ran the St. Patrick's Day 5k in March with Ada!) and we got to see her and her friends before the race. The announcements were done - welcome, an introduction of Erika Brannock, a short speech by Erika Brannock (a MD runner who was seriously injured at the Boston Marathon in 2013), a fantastic singing of the National Anthem, then we were off!

This race is going to be hubby's last race until the fall as he will be having surgery on his legs next month. Within the first 50 feet he said his legs were hurting him. Uh oh. We kept going and thankfully it went away. We did a run half a mile/walk one minute interval. We were slow, but it was going well.

The race course changed from last year and took us through Fells Point and back. We really liked the Fell's Point area as we ran through and since it was Pirate's weekend, there was all sorts of stuff going on there! We debated stopping and just hanging out, but we continued on.

As an aside, we were running through Fell's Point and a gentleman had a sign saying "Ladies, run fast because Luke Bryan is waiting for you at the finish line!" I looked over and said, "Sir, I believe you are lying." He was quick with his response - "No, there is a Luke and a Bryan waiting at the finish line!" Touche sir, touche!

Hubby did GREAT! He ran further than he has since the last time we ran this race in 2013. I struggled during the last mile, but we came back to McHenry Row and ran across the finish line! Our friend Ada and her friends were there and were kind enough to give us bottles of water immediately. The temperatures were in the 60s, which is beautiful walking around being outside weather, but when you've trained in 10-20 degree temps all winter it was like running in an oven!

We chatted with our friends, then made our way back for some snacks...and beer. :-) We grabbed ourselves a pint of beer, a banana, bag of pretzels, and we had our waters.

And the obligatory post-race selfie...
From here, we checked out Charm City Run (because we are suckers) for buying running stuff after a race (and there was a $10 off coupon on the back of our bibs....). I grabbed a cute purple 5k shirt, while hubby grabbed a Baltimore themed shirt.

Since I want to run more 5ks this year, this will be the perfect shirt! It's soft too. I was able to get $10 off the shirt, so while pricey, at least it was a tad bit more affordable.

We headed home after our stop at the store and made our Saturday morning stop at Dunkin Donuts. We totally Earned Our Donuts yesterday!
I have a rule that I can only have an apply fritter when I run 5 or more miles. 6.2 completely allows me an apple fritter! So yummy!

Now, just a quick pros/cons from the 2014 Sole of the City 10k

Pros
  • It's a 10k (Not a common race distance around these parts)
  • The promo is a jacket (rare as well)
  • The course (all around Baltimore and loved the run through Fells Point!)
  • Start time (9:00 a.m. is helpful for those driving over an hour to get there!)
Cons
  • For this year only, the promo jacket was initially yellow but the color wasn't ready by the manufacturer in time. They replaced it was a black jacket for the women (the men's gray jacket stayed the same). My issue is in 2012 (the first year it was run) the jacket was black. Wasn't there any other colors available?
  • The course. Yes, I realize I am contradicting myself here. My issue is that for slow runners (like myself) when we ran by the Inner Harbor this time around we had to run through tourists. In the past, this part of the race (which I LOVE), had been at the beginning when there weren't a lot of people around. I would have liked this part of the race to be like it was the last two years, then head up to Fell's Point. Then when we return, run along Pratt Street, which is how we returned the last two years.
Outside that, this is a great race. Seriously. If you are in the Baltimore area or are looking for a racecation, this would be a great race for it. It's a 10k, which means it can be a challenging distance, but because it is a shorter distance you will be up to being a tourist afterwards. Baltimore is a great city for so many reasons and would make a great long weekend trip, especially since they do a day-of packet pick-up.

Did you race this weekend? Did you run Sole of the City 10k? What did you think? 

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