Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Cooper River Bridge Run Recap

On Saturday, our morning started at 4:30AM. We sooo could have slept it. Luckily this was the second night I was able to get good sleep. Getting used to sharing a bed with someone is hard!

Everybody met at our place to leave at 5:00. With 47,000 participants, we weren't going to play around with time. No way we could have left late and been on time. Shuttles lines started forming at 5:30, which was about the exact time we showed up.

Our bus driver told us there were over 300 buses to shuttle all of the participants from downtown Charleston over to Mount Pleasant where the race would start.

He looks sleepy here, but we woke up pretty quickly when our driver got lost THREE times. Apparently they weren't given directions. Blocking traffic to do a u-turn was great!
 Having a clueless driver was frustrating, but luckily we got there in PLENTY of time. Of course the females had to use the bathroom before the race started.  The lines were insane, but what else can you expect when there are thousands of people all around needing to do the same thing.

Our before picture (Richard-a roommate of Andrews, Cecile, me, hubby)
We walked to our specific groups. When filling out the registration form, they had us list run time to place everyone in a specific group so less people get run over.  Way back when I signed up, I chose (runner/walker). Hello, that's how I trained. Everyone else signed up to run and finish in an hour. Somehow, Cecile ended up with the big dogs and got placed in section A. Richard and Andrew placed in F, and I was in L. Luckily they let me slide in the F group. I would have been SO mad standing there forever by myself if they hadn't.

Race time was scheduled for 8:00AM. That didn't happen.
 Every few minutes around 8:00, the announcers would say "Just a few more minutes!", "Five more minutes!!", "Thirty seconds left of waiting!", "We are experiencing technical difficulties on the other side of the bridge, just FIVE more minutes.".... you get it... over and over... and over. The race finally got started at 9:15 (an hour and 15 minutes late). We did have some awesome music blarring through speakers during our wait! and it was fun waving at the helicopters overhead filming the crowd. Who doesn't wave when they see a plane/helicopter? -oh ok so I'm still five I guess.

Let me just say that I WAS warned by the rest of my group ahead of time of the incline to the top of the bridge. Its steady.. I think there was almost 2 miles before the bridge base, then two miles over the bridge, then two miles to the finish through streets of downtown Charleston.

Boy were we out of shape. I suprised myself and was able to run about 15 mins before I had to take a walk break tho.. Remember now, that the way I trained with Marathon Makeover was to alternate running/walking.  For the half in October, Susan and I ran 4min/walk 1 min. I've bumped it up for shorter runs to 5-6min run.  So 15 mins was all about the adrenaline duh.
 It was very crowded and we had to bob-and-weave around walkers, but they did the same with us.
 Notice the incline. Torture.
 Getting to the top and seeing the bridge architecture was pretty amazing. We had perfect weather instead of the rain that was forcasted. It seriously SUCKED doing this race with no preparation, but how can you not feel good about yourself after doing something like that?! This race WILL be on my To Do list next March! and I will be better prepared and not kill my husband making him walk.

After picture! Success. and a possible black toenail.
 Looky who we ran in to! Alan from The Hangover!! and I must add that he sounded JUST like him too!!


Results::
Chip time - 1:20:15
Clock time - 1:43:51
Overall - 23462
Female - 12108
Division - 1665
Age Grade - 37.8%

After fighting people for water, then fighting cars in traffic, we finally made it to lunch!
 Andrew brought me to this place for brunch one Sunday on a visit to Charleston.  It was awesome! and a fun atmosphere. It's all open windows on the inside, or you can sit at the picnic tables outside. Either way, your gonna feel the breeze!

I ordered from the Not so Burgers section of the menu:
Seabiscuit
(shrimp patty, spicy pineapple preserve)
 It was served with a side of sweet potatoe fries with a honeybutter sauce. AHHHHmazing. Def my favorite part of the meal. The shrimp patty was ok, it was different, but I think I'll stick with salmon patties...

Andrew order:
Wilbur
(grass fed beef, pork belly, cheddar cheese, think of a super awesome bacon cheese burger)
 He liked it a little, but wished he would have ordered what he got last time :
Hot Sh**
(grass fed beef, chorizo, fried egg, jalapeno, pepper jack cheese)

What can I say? My guy likes the SPICE! He couldn't stop talking about this burger the last time he got it, so he was kicking himself after ordering Wilbur this time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cecile checked the crab pot for the yummy little creatures that got suckered in from the turkey leg. 14 of those bad boys caught! Bring on the crab dip and crab pie!



Love.Love

No comments:

Post a Comment