Guest Post – Raleigh Rock ‘n Roll Marathon Race Recap

This is a guest post from one of my running partners, Rachel, who ran the Raleigh (NC) Rock ‘n Roll Marathon on Sunday, April 13, 2014.

From Rachel:

Today I ran the inaugural Raleigh Rock and Roll Marathon. This also happened to be my very first marathon, and my first attempt at serious fundraising as a charity runner for the Jimmy V foundation, an all cancers research non-profit, founded by the late and wonderful human being Jim Valvano.

Let’s do the organizational negatives at the start. This being Raleigh’s first Rock and Roll, the race was well organized, but still needed more pre-race porta-potties. Big pre-race lines.

Traffic was so terrible getting to the race that many people parked their cars illegally and sprinted to the race start. Race start time was delayed by 15 minutes. I would have liked more frequent water stations at the end of the race (was a 3 mile gap from mile 14-17).

First 8 miles were Shady and in 50-60 degree weather. At the turnoff/split between half to full, things got sunny, spaced out, and gritty.

The music was fantastic. The Brit-pop Emcee was a perfect beginning and end to the race.

We were kept in good spirits by ~ 20 musical groups/dj’s.

Faves of the Course

Shaw University Marching Band!!!!!

Extreme Mad Props to the DJ’s in the land of desperation (miles 10-18). The multiple miles of blaring loudspeakers kept me going. In particular, I want to thank DJ Dan for KC and the sunshine band…could not have lifted me out of the wall more.

Also the Delilah-esque pep-talking dj at mile 10/20 deserves the same gratitude.

Newbies. FYI Raleigh has hills, and lots of them. If you live in the flatlands, better train up.

Thank you to David, Evan, Tasha, and Luke for those painful Cooper River Bridge Training sessions.

Thanks to the final 2 water stations that had ice for the runners. It was a hefty 77 when I crossed the finish line…

Post race food was extensive—people were shoving food at me left and right. (bananas, Gatorade, water, chocolate milk, pizza, and probably more, but had no desire to eat at that moment…).

I skipped the post race concert because I could barely walk at that moment, but it looked like there were a lot of excited teenagers present to hear it. New Politics had already finished by the time my race ended!