Saturday was my first experience ever running the
Baltimore Ten Miler, or the B10, which is the second race in the
King Crab Race Series. In short, it was a very well run race with some issues due to weather.
The expo is really nothing special--it was nothing but a table with boxes of bibs and a rack of t-shirts. It wasn't that big a deal to me since I was in Baltimore anyways to volunteer at the aquarium for about half an hour to check on the turtles and give them a snack. The zoo was really easy to get to and find parking, and as an added bonus it gave me a chance to see what to expect on race morning. The line wasn't too long, but it went quickly since people had time to look up their bib numbers. (The premium is handed out after the race because for a long time that was used in place of a medal, but this was the first year that everybody got medals!)
Smallest. Expo. Ever.
On race day I ended up carpooling with some women in my
Moms Run This Town group (you don't have to have kids to join--I just have furry children and they count!) We arrived just before 6 with little issue finding parking, although the way the parking lot is setup at the zoo it's hard to figure out where parking is until somebody else parks there! (The grass was a little overgrown in the lots and were covering up the logs that partition off lanes.) By pure chance, we ended up parking right near another car full of women from the running group and we all walked to the starting area together.
We then gathered in front of the portajohns until the lines got too long (it also gave us a chance to estimate when to go for the last bathroom run.) We chatted a little bit since some of the women have done the race several times now, and it was good to get some last minute advice like knowing it wasn't exactly a PR course and it's better to take it easy than to overexert yourself in the high heat and humidity. About 20 minutes before gun time we split to go to the starting area to our separate waves. (The crowd was so packed it was hard to stay together!) I tried looking for pacers, but apparently there weren't any this year so I lined up close to my expected pace since they at least had expected pace signs along the starting area.
During the race I tried to keep to a similar pace as the Cherry Blossom (I averaged a 11:27 pace) but unfortunately I went out entirely too fast. This could be due to the first couple of miles being a general downhill, but I'm also prone to overdoing it in the first few miles. Here's how my splits looked...
I tried my best to keep my head down and focus on the course ahead of me. At some points there were people getting sick along the course, and when I reconnected with the others in my carpool they said there were a lot of paramedics out on the course helping people. (In fact while we were waiting for the last person in my group, there was somebody off to the side from the finisher's area leaning up on a friend while another held up an IV bag.)
There were plenty of water stops, but they began to run out of water towards the end probably because people were taking 2 cups--one to drink, the other to dump over their heads. There were a few groups of people cheering everybody on, and the groups that provided the water stops did a great job of cheering us on as well.
One of the weirdest things though was right around mile 8.75 when we hit the big hill we went down at the beginning and everybody. Seriously--EVERYBODY was walking up the hill. It made it even harder to get the motivation to start running again. This is the elevation of that hill at the beginning of the race.
After that even though we could hear the finish line there was still a loop to run around before heading back to the finish line. Before making that final turn you could see and hear the finish line which was that last little push I needed to really make that final push.
After the race, the support was fantastic--they had water, cold towels (they were put in kiddie pools full of ice as we started the race felt great!), medals (handed out by Baltimore police), then all kinds of snacks--apples, oranges, bananas, watermelon, granola bars and chips. Then I went into the line for race premiums (the women's medium line was very long, but it moved very quickly.) Since I signed up for the King Crab I also got access to a special area just for participants that was a WONDERFUL touch. We had our own beer line (Harpoon's UFO white shandy was fantastic!) along with cold water bottles and more bags of chips.
The jacket and the medal are awesome! The penguin medal is so cute.
Overall, I thought this was a great race but it needs to be a different time of year--like just before or after the Frederick half marathon so it can be worked into anybody's training for the half marathon. Doing this race made me realize that I shouldn't do any races after Memorial Day Weekend, because it got hot really fast this year. The race was a great value, but with the weather it would make me think twice about doing it.
