A race in the home town. It’s been a while. Roughly 2,000 participants gathered for the St Paddy’s 8K.
The New Trend
I ran a race, and all I got was half a medal.
The new trend among races is to hand out incentivizing, partial medals. And the Run Green 8K organized St Paddy’s 8K is no different. The two races in the series consist of the St. Paddy’s 8K, and the Oktoberfest 8K. They’re two annual events that are both fun and raise money for the nOg Run Club charities.
I’m actually sort of curious who started this trend. If I had to make an uneducated guess, I’d say perhaps the Spartan Race was one of the first to incentivize whole-series signups when they started handing out shards of the trifecta medal with each race.
The BAM Race series has a similar deal going on with their four medal series, however, each of their medals can stand on their own, but a reveal a beach themed, large 12 x 8 inch super medal.
Looks like I’ll be running the Oktoberfest 8K this year as well.
The route
Technical difficulties all around. No, the race was fine, but on my end things got wonky. I generally run with both Runkeeper, and my Garmin. For some unknown reason, Runkeeper didn’t record the route entirely. And it seems my Garmin didn’t lock onto the GPS until we were already a few miles into the race.
I think it may be ridiculous to use yet a third device, but I managed to acquire a properly recorded Garmin route from a friend, so not all is lost.
The fairly hilly route kicked off next to the Raleigh Beer Garden, snaked its way along Glenwood, Boylan, and St Marys, and looped between Cameron Village and NCSU. Not bad, actually, and certainly much preferrable than just out and back along Hillsborough St.
Results
My official result is totally butchered. 43 year old Mascue finished 9th in an age group he doesn’t belong in. I’m not sure whether my handwriting has gotten that bad, or if whoever transcribed my signup on St Paddy’s day had already been heavily celebrating. Either way, I’m thinking Athlinks will have a fairly tough time linking that back to me.
At the finish line I ran into a few familiar faces, most of them named Heather. Quick, photo op.
I shall complete this medal in a few month, and I’ll see you at the Oktoberfest 8K.
I realized I haven’t run a 5K in a while, and the Rock’n’Roll remix bling was incentive enough, since I’m already running the half marathon tomorrow. Packet Pickup As always, packet pickup was at the Rock’n’Roll Health & Fitness Expo held at the Raleigh Convention Center. I’ve participated in enough Rock’n’Roll events that I’m familiar with …
Sometimes, you just have to be spontaneous. This race was an impromptu hail mary decision. I drove down the night before, straight to the Health & Fitness expo packet pickup location and signed up for the race. Somehow I felt good about it. Packet Pickup I wasn’t armed with cameras for this one. Just my phone, and it …
Arrival Generally I make it a habit to pick up the race packet first, but DC is one of the cities where it makes sense to first get situated and the car stowed. So the first stop after arriving in the city was to check in at The Donovan. Centrally located right by 14th and …
Despite trail running being one of my favorite things to do, I’ve never actually participated in an official race that consisted of a trail run — without stables, anyway. Packet Pickup Although packet pickup was available the day before at Fleet Feet in Carrboro, it was out of my way and I decided to show up …
St Paddy’s 8K and Kilt Run Race Report
A race in the home town. It’s been a while. Roughly 2,000 participants gathered for the St Paddy’s 8K.
The New Trend
I ran a race, and all I got was half a medal.
The new trend among races is to hand out incentivizing, partial medals. And the Run Green 8K organized St Paddy’s 8K is no different. The two races in the series consist of the St. Paddy’s 8K, and the Oktoberfest 8K. They’re two annual events that are both fun and raise money for the nOg Run Club charities.
I’m actually sort of curious who started this trend. If I had to make an uneducated guess, I’d say perhaps the Spartan Race was one of the first to incentivize whole-series signups when they started handing out shards of the trifecta medal with each race.
The BAM Race series has a similar deal going on with their four medal series, however, each of their medals can stand on their own, but a reveal a beach themed, large 12 x 8 inch super medal.
Looks like I’ll be running the Oktoberfest 8K this year as well.
The route
Technical difficulties all around. No, the race was fine, but on my end things got wonky. I generally run with both Runkeeper, and my Garmin. For some unknown reason, Runkeeper didn’t record the route entirely. And it seems my Garmin didn’t lock onto the GPS until we were already a few miles into the race.
I think it may be ridiculous to use yet a third device, but I managed to acquire a properly recorded Garmin route from a friend, so not all is lost.
The fairly hilly route kicked off next to the Raleigh Beer Garden, snaked its way along Glenwood, Boylan, and St Marys, and looped between Cameron Village and NCSU. Not bad, actually, and certainly much preferrable than just out and back along Hillsborough St.
Results
My official result is totally butchered. 43 year old Mascue finished 9th in an age group he doesn’t belong in. I’m not sure whether my handwriting has gotten that bad, or if whoever transcribed my signup on St Paddy’s day had already been heavily celebrating. Either way, I’m thinking Athlinks will have a fairly tough time linking that back to me.
At the finish line I ran into a few familiar faces, most of them named Heather. Quick, photo op.
I shall complete this medal in a few month, and I’ll see you at the Oktoberfest 8K.
But first, the Raleigh Rock’n’Roll on April 9th and 10th.
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