On Sunday, I did my TENTH half marathon which was the Rock N' Roll Philly Half Marathon. I've heard of RnR before but this is my first time doing an RnR race.

Pre-Race
This Philly race reminded me a lot of last November's race when I did the Philly Marathon. Bib pick up was held at the Philadelphia Convention Center and the start and finish were in the same place.

That being said, I thought that this was 100x a better race - from the expo to the post-race party. The pre-race expo was huge with a ton of vendors and samples: Brooks, Sparkly Soul, Apera, etc.

Bib pick up was a breeze. I just had to print out my registration form and I got my bib and shirt and walked around. My sister, who wasn't even running the race, did some serious shopping while I kept running around the large expo looking for her (spoiler alert: I stayed for an hour and could find her, that's how big this expo was)

Race morning
We stayed at the Residence Inn which was a short walk from the start line. When you share a room with a bunch of 20 somethings who aren't racing - you don't get much sleep (although I did have delicious leftover pizza and cookies post race). I went to sleep around 1am for an 8am start time. I got up at 6:30 am and slowly got up and left around 7:15.

Taken on the way to the start also by the first mile of the race
There were 20+ corrals and I was in corral 17 or so, which is all the way by the finish line and the museum. The corrals were probably the smallest I've ever seen at a race but there was no race congestion during the start, or at least during the first few miles.

Minus the physical pain that I was in - the race was pretty awesome. I much preferred this course to the Philly half/marathon course (which the half and marathon course share the first 13 miles together). The course took you through a tour of the city of Philly through all the historical points of interest, which RNR had signs for (i.e. This is where Ben Franklin is buried, this is where the liberty bell is, etc.). RnR also had great motivational signs (a favorite = WTF? Where is The Finish? around mile 9 or 10 I think). Plus of course they had great music during the race.

I was at the back of the pack and was pretty worried that I'd be picked up and forced off the course but I wasn't. A majority of people around me after I stopped running at mile 9, and was doing my shuffle, were walking. Post race I was looking at an article about race limits and races that are walker friendly and apparently RnR was one of them. I think the course limit here was 4 hours (which I believe is after the last corral starts). I ran most of the race but after mile 9 I couldn't - walked a mile, ran a mile, walked, and ran most of the last mile.

Post race party was pretty awesome and each runner got a free beer ticket. I was so tired and exhausted that I couldn't have my beer. Each runner got some PowerBars, pretzels, gatorade and water bottles. I do believe there was chocolate milk too. The medal is awesome and pretty heavy.

When I got back to the hotel, I got in the elevator with a husband and wife who was wearing I think 3 medals: the RnR Philly, the remix one (if you ran the 5k the day before + the half that day, you got an additional one) plus the Rock Legend one below. For the record the one below is MASSIVE. It had to be the length of my hand and looked really heavy. I checked out the website: you get it for running 7 RnR races plus more medals for more races you do.

Seven miles is a random race distance. So just doing one, just automatically sets a PR right?

The Falmouth Road Race is a 7 mile race, not a 10k or a 15k but a 7 mile one. It's random but for August, on a mostly non shaded, hilly course, it might be the perfect distance.

Pre-Race
There wasn't bib pick up the day of so after running a 5K in the Bronx Saturday morning, the boy and I drove up to Cape Cod (and hit tons of traffic on I-95) but made it to bib pick up before they closed at 6pm.

Even though I was at bib pick up well before closing (5:15pm), a lot of the vendors already starting cleaning up so I didn't get to check out too many things. I did my loop around a few times (mostly looking for some snacks after such a long car ride) after picking up my goods.

The bib is awesome and had my name on it but instead of shirts, we got an awesome tote bag which is perfect for the beat and a large mug plus an awesome poster.

Race Day

Since my mom travels a ton and has free points laying around, I got a hotel room in New Bedford but New Bedford is 40 minutes from Falmouth (no traffic). Knowing that I wanted to sleep in a bit after spending all of Saturday running around, we grabbed breakfast around 6:30am and were on the road by 6:45am to head to the junior high school in Falmouth where buses were waiting to take us to Woods Hole where the race began.

The GPS said we'd be there around 7:20am. Except there was a ton of traffic and I wasn't dropped off until 7:45am. When I got to the middle school, there were lines stretching across fields to get onto the buses.

Despite various materials on the website saying last buses were at 7:45am (or in the booklet in my bag which said 8am), I didn't get on to the bus until 8:10-15 or so.

When we got off the buses, a 10 minute walk took us to race village and then we started to see open water. It was gorgeous.

After getting some water and using the port-a-potties, I got myself in my "corral" except these corrals were self placement ones. You just placed yourself where you thought your pace would be for the race. I put myself in between 10 and 11 minute paces.

The wheelchair races started at 8:40am, everyone else 9am but groups of people were going off every 2 minutes or so. So even though I was in my corral 10 minutes before 9am, I still had time to kill so I was hanging out by the water.

So glad there were water stations in the race corrals!
Around 9:20 we started moving towards the start and finally went off around 9:25.

The race started in Wood Hole which is a really cute town with lots of small cafes and restaurants after running through town we made it to the water where it was gorgeous. In the far distance you could see the hill with runners running around it.

This race was gorgeous, hilly and had amazing energy and crowd support. Admittedly, it did get a bit crowded, I found the first mile to be the least crowded but these roads were curvy and tight roads. Other than mile 3-4, majority of this race was in the hot sun. The sea breeze provided some relief but not enough. There were plenty of water stations and locals with their hoses out spraying runners as they went by.

Almost to the finish...the downhill before the VERY STEEP up hill.
I read the race website and course description so I was endlessly waiting for that final hill before the downhill finish. I started to speed up and hit the top of the hill then realized that was not the hill they were talking about. The final hill was steep and painful and it was already such a hot race. My boyfriend was standing at the top of the hill and said at one point people made it up and just started vomiting right at the top (gross).

The finish line was awesome. A huge American flag hung over the finish. Quite the sight.

The end is near! The American flag hanging over the finish!
After finishing, we made our way to the finisher's area/family meeting area. I finally made it there after 15 minutes or so. We got bottles of cold water immediately after we finished but had to walk to the meeting area to get food: pretzels, cape cod chips, apples, cranberry (?) juice (I don't like cranberry juice so I didn't get any at least I thought it was cranberry juice).

I met the boy under the last name sign where we sat in the grass and I ate and stretched. There were free hot dogs in the meeting area, flavored sparking water from Poland Spring and I think there were free Yasso yogurt bars but I think they ran out before I could grab one.

We walked 10 minutes to the car which was in a random patch of grass in a residential neighborhood, right by the beach. Instead of sitting in traffic for hours trying to get out of the area, the boy and I went to the beach for 2 hours.
By the time we left around 1:30pm, the crowds and traffic were gone. We ended up driving the course in the opposite direction (it's a point to point course) and grabbing lunch on the way back to Woods Hole. What I noticed this time around were the large painted mileage signs on the road. During the race I had only noticed that miles 4,5,6 to be painted on the ground but not the others however, they were all painted, including the start line.

Post race I went back to the start line

This is a sold out race and the only way in is through lottery. I believe the entry fee was $55 and I would totally do this again next year. It's such a great family event to do (I did notice a decent amount of kids and teens doing it as well).

I don't think there was a pre-race expo? We left the hotel, which was literally right next to the Under Armour, Nine West, Gap, Banana Republic outlets, around 7:30am and got there at 7:35am. I picked up my bib and my timer piece, which I tied onto my shoes, hit up the bathroom, and ran outside.

Typically I find that 20 minutes is no time to prep for a race, you know use the restroom, get mentally prepared, warm up but this race did not have the typical stressors (i.e. people, trains not running, baggage issues, etc.) I usually have when I race in the City.

The course was point to point. The half marathon started at the Lake George Elementary School, where people were told to park since Camp Chingachgook didn't have much parking. The camp was the start AND finish for the 10k while it was just the finish for the half-marathoners. There were buses to bus people to and from both sites.

In full disclosure, I spaced out on this race...didn't quite make the connection of "challenge" to the race name until I was racing. This race was no walk in the park. There were a ton of hills. In the first 2 miles alone, I counted 3 hills. These weren't just hills these were STEEP.

The course was on the open road with neither side of traffic shut down, which was fine for the most part except after mile 10. There was a tight spot where a water station and a tight, curvy spot of the road where traffic sloooooweeed down because there was no way to get around the runners. Since there wasn't too many runners (final race results show 272 final results), you ended up running in a single line. Up until mile 6, I was pacing two girls in blue then lost them at a water station.

Speaking of water stations, I was really thirsty that day. At one station, I threw down at least 10 cups of water and gatorade. I should have brought a hydration pack with me. The water stations were every 3 miles for the most part. I also didn't see a port-a-potty until the last few miles.

Despite being thirsty and at times, or feeling like I'd be hit by a car, it was a gorgeous scenic run. I stopped a few times to take pictures but the pictures don't do it justice.

At mile 9, I started to see signs for the camp, 4 miles away. Towards the end of the race, I saw the Camp but didn't see the finish line and kept running past the parking lots until I finally turned left into a field where the finish line was.

A teen volunteer asked me what the best part of racing was and I said "food." That was the BEST post race spread I have seen. There were breakfast foods (bagels, oranges, etc.) then lunch items like hot dogs, BBQ chicken, chips, watermelon, etc. I inhaled all of the food. I didn't take a single GU or gel during the race (I brought some but they also weren't offered) so I ate like I haven't eaten in days. I'm usually not hungry immediately after the race but I started eating no less than 5 minutes after finishing.

Would I do this race again? Sure would! If you're going to make it upstate, this is a great summer race to do. Doesn't have the frills and thrills of a big city race but it has it's charms (and food!). Also, you just need to visit the outlets post race...I bought some awesome Under Armour running spandex for cheap!