Sunday, April 06, 2008

Cooper River Bridge Run


Post race shot of our team: Matt, Greg, me, Robin, Nicole, Anita


Me and the girls eating at Hyman's Seafood after the race, they have EXCELLENT seafood, if you're ever in Charleston GO! I've gone every time I've been in Charleston

Friday night I went to Charleston with some friends to run the "famous" Cooper River Bridge 10k. I guess it's world renoun and supposed to be one of the best 10k's in the nation. There are over 35,000 runners...yes thousand, the size of a small city running at one time.

Five friends and I went camping the night before, enjoyed broken sleep in the midst of a HUGE rain storm that night and ran the next morning. Camping was great, not very restful but my first experience in SC. The race was...CRAZY! They had shuttle buses taking people to the starting line (30 min. detour to go around the bridge) up until 8:30 a.m. The race started at 8:00 a.m. By the time we got to the starting line the Kenyan's and some others had already finished running.

It's a GREAT course, the bridge is really beautiful. Charleston on the whole is a beautiful city. One of my friends with us from LA said it reminds her a lot of the layout of Southern California...Palmetto trees, beach, trendy yuppie area.

We ran more for fun than for time b/c it was impossible to break free from the crowd and really GO at times, particularly on the bridge. For those interested you can check out pics from last year's race online at www.bridgerun.com. You can see the mass of people at the beginning and then the group of 6-8 Kenyan's that break free an run pretty much solo from the crowd the last 3 miles. I ran it yesterday in 55:45. The top male ran it in 29 minutes. The top female ran it in 32 minutes and something I think.

Overall impression of this famous race...GREAT course, beautiful area, WAY too many people, probably wouldn't do it again...unless I'm as fast as a Kenyan at some point in my running career and can break free from the crowd...ya, not gonna happen in this life!

No comments: