Yesterday was the Around the Crown 10k, a fairly new race to the Charlotte area. This is technically year three, but Covid put a stopper on year two. In this race, you start and end at First Ward Park, but a couple miles are out on 277, a body highway that gets shut down for a couple hours just for the race. What this means for runners is that you only have a shirt window to get off hat highway. The first two miles are in the city, the next 3 on the highway, and the final mile back in the city. More or less.
We arrived just in time to use the bathrooms and get to the start area. Mostly because the bathroom lines looked like this:
Not enough bathrooms for the number of runners. I had friends who came out of the bathroom to see that they missed the start of the race!
We did a quick selfie before we started, with the bathroom lines behind us!
We all separated early on. We had different intervals and speeds and we all ran our own race. I saw some friends on the course, which was nice.
I made it to 277 just in time. The month I had to take off for my foot really messed up my training! This race was a struggle from start to finish. The sweepers entered 277 not far behind me, and they passed me at around mile 4.25, with 3/4 mile to go before I got off the highway. If I could make it off the highway, I could walk on the streets until I got to the finish.
I think they gave me a little grace at the end. I kept up with the sweepers for a little bit, and a really nice police officer kept giving me updates on how close I was to being swept. In the end, I think she let me keep going when she shouldn’t have. A bunch of people around me just walked to the bus, but one couple stayed with me and we were allowed to use the sidewalks to finish. They picked up the cones ahead of us.
After making a wrong turn, and using a map app, I managed to make it to the finish line…. From behind it! I corrected that and finished the race. Whew! What a morning!
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