All the Glory With Just Some of the Pain!

Disclaimer: I received a Relay Team entry in the Charlotte Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find, and write race reviews!

This past weekend, I ran my very first Marathon Relay at the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon. Basically how it works is you, and up to 4 of your friends split up the marathon distance and tackle the course together rather than have to put in the full 26.2 miles by yourself. Since doing a Relay is a bit more complicated than doing a straightforward solo race, let me break it down a bit for you. 

The Race - Novant Health Charlotte Marathon

Real quick run down of the race. The Charlotte Marathon was formally known as Thunder Road Marathon from 2005 - 2015. Then it changed names to better reflect the fact that this was Charlotte's hometown race. 

There are 5 races that make up the Charlotte Marathon race day - the Marathon, Marathon Relay, Half Marathon, 5K and Kids 1 Mile. All races are run the same day with a 7:30 am start for the Marathon, Relay and Half, 7:45 start for the 5K and 7:50 for the Kids 1 Mile. So really there is a race distance for everyone. The races start at the Charlotte Knights Stadium and finish at Romare Bearden Park (across the street) and each course winds through Uptown and some of the most iconic parts of Charlotte. Immediately after finishing, a volunteer gave you your medal and there was a backdrop up for finisher photos Further down, the finish line chute had small Publix bags to pack with food (bananas, cereal bars, fruit cups, Gatorade, water and if you finished early enough Chocolate Milk (they had run out by the time our team finished). NoDa Brewing was giving out free craft beer in a roped off area with space heaters (yay), there was a band playing and several vendor tents set up in the park. 

The race website has a ton of excellent information including course maps, elevation maps and extremely detailed information about the races, the schedule, basically anything that you need to know. I consulted it frequently and found everything I needed easily. Check it out here - https://runcharlotte.com/ 

The Team(s)

The teams at one of our pre-race planning sessions

In September, while attending the the Around the Crown 10K Expo, a few of us from my Fleet Feet Fort Mill Running Club started floating the idea of doing the Charlotte Marathon since it was the goal race for the Half Marathon and 5K runners in our club. See, several of us were training for other events, me for my Rock n Roll Savannah sub-2 hour Half and several others for the Kiawah Marathon in December. So the idea come up to run the Relay and split the distance instead of each of us racing a full race on their own. When all was said and done, we had 2 teams worth of runners that wanted in, that is 10 runners ready to tackle the Queen City! After a ton of coordinating and detail planning, we settled on our team roosters and assigned legs. Easy peasy! Registering as a team was super easy, basically one person registers as Team Captain and makes the payment and the other team members follow a provided link to enter their information like shirt sizes and emergency contacts and so on. Each team member receives a shirt and medal at the finish. According to a pre-race Q&A session, there were 200 teams registered for the Marathon Relay.
The Expo

Harman posing with the giant #RUNCLT sign at packet pickup

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Expo because I was working on Friday, but luckily one of our team members worked just down the street and picked up our stuff for us. For the Relay, just one person needed to pick up everything anyway, so it worked out perfect. Relay runners received an envelop with 5 bibs (all the same number), an Velcro armband with the tracker on it that was to be handed off at each leg, and a shirt for each team member. The shirts were short sleeve Recover shirts, navy with green writing for the Relay and really quite nice. They were true to size and I love the way mine fits. I probably won't run in it, but wear for everyday. I had Harman take some pictures for me and he said that everything was very well organized. You could be in and out quickly if you wanted, but there was lots to see and merchandise to browse if you wanted. Plus some cool photo ops like this awesome #RUNCLT sign.

Race Day

Team 1 - Ready to Race (my team)

Our teams met up early and carpooled into the Charlotte together (about a 30 min drive) in order to save on parking fees. There were plenty of places to park with easy access to the Start which was located at the Charlotte Knights Baseball Stadium (BB&T Ballpark). We parked in a parking garage about 2 blocks from the start and made our way over to the surrounding area where lots of groups had tents up. Music was playing and the ball park had their bathrooms open so it was nice to be able to use a real bathroom pre-race. 

Team 2 - Ready to Race

The weather was kind of a mixed bag. On one hand, it didn't rain, which we were all worried about with a 40 - 50% chance during the race times. And at 42 degrees, it wasn't terribly cold. But the WIND! OMG the wind was insane. A really cold wind blew steadily pretty much the whole race with 20-30 mph gusts on occasion. I'm fairly cold-natured and was never really able to warm up too much, but had dressed for it, so I wasn't miserable or anything. Just cold. I think I took my gloves off for about 2 miles, but that was it. The sun peeked out every once in a while, but I was fine without sunglasses. If it were not for the wind, I would say it was near perfect race conditions for most people. 

The start was right on time with the Marathon, Half Marathon and Relay starting at 7:30 am, immediately after the National Anthem. There was also a 5K and a 1 mile race that both started later, 7:45 for the 5K and 7:50 for the 1 Mile. For there 7:30 start, there were pace groups positioned throughout the start chute. I stuck around to cheer on our starting runners and then jogged over a few blocks to hop into our team's car to drop off our runners at their Relay start points (more about this in a bit). 


The Course

Here's a quick heads up to those who have never run in Charlotte before. Charlotte is hilly. Like a lot hillier than you would expect. The 10 miles of the course I ran were challenging, but not what I would consider super hard. As long as you added some hill work into your training, you would be fine. Just don't expect a flat course.

Course elevation

Leg #4 was my official leg, but because some of us are a bit crazy, we actually ran an extra leg to both put in a few more miles and to keep each other company. So I ran legs #3 and #4 which spanned from mile 10 to mile 20. I wasn't the only one on our team that doubled up. Leg #2 runner, Robin, ran with Katie and I for leg #3 and Harman, our final leg runner, joined me for #4. I had asked the Race Director during a Facebook Live event if it was okay if we ran multiple legs and he said that as long as we had a bib and were respectful of other racers, sure, why not. 

Me, super happy at the end of both my legs

So like I said, my 10 miles were hilly, but not unenjoyable. I started off with Katie at Mile 10 in the Dillworth neighborhood. We then made our way back towards uptown Charlotte where the Half Marathon and Marathon routes split with the Half heading in to finish (the Marathoners could see the finish line down a side street to your right, but didn't run through it) and the Half headed out towards the NoDa neighborhood which is always fun and interesting to run through. There were LOTS of spectators throughout the course and it was super nice to get cheered on, especially at the some areas where there were organized cheer stations. Two that were notable during my legs were at Mile 16 where the Around the Crown 10K had set up a cheer station with NoDa Brewing and were giving out high fives (which I took) and beer (which I didn't) and a huge cheer station around Mile 19 that had a big cut out in the road that said Don't Hit the Wall that you could run through (which I did). There were several bands and and DJs blasting music along the course also, but I don't really remember at what intervals. Every 2 miles or so there was an aid station with Water and Gatorade. I also heard there were gels at a few stations, but I didn't pay much attention as I carried my own water and nutrition. 

When you finished your Relay leg you had to pass off the Velcro armband tracker to the next runner who had to run over a timing mat in order to officially start the new leg. Once finished, there was a table at the exchange point where volunteers would give you a bag of goodies that had a water bottle, Gatorade bottle and cereal bar. There were also a couple of portapoties at the exchange points. The first exchange point was a bit chaotic, but I think that was because it was only 4.2 miles in and runners were still pretty bunched up. The others were much less so and everything went smoothly. 

The Logistics 

Post race celebrating - that's our awesome driver Kyle on the far right

The thing that I was most worried about was getting around from exchange point to exchange point. At first I thought that each of us would have to hang out at our starting point until our hand off, and then we'd each have to make our way back to the finish on our own. There was no transportation provided by the race as far as shuttles or anything like that. What we ended up doing was one of our team member's husband gracious drove us around and picked us up at our stations. It was a bit more challenging in that we were trying to coordinate 2 teams that were different paces, but with the help of an extra key and a 2nd car at the 4th exchange point, a GPS and the map/directions provided by the race, we were able to successfully navigate the exterior of the race and drop off and pick up as we needed with no one being late to their start and no one waiting long in the cold. Both teams even were able to meet up near the finish before the chute so we could run in as a team with no problems. It went WAY smoother than I thought it would and only a few wrong turns. Shout out to Kyle for being our chauffeur for the day (and occasional photographer).

Now for the really only complaint I had about the whole race experience, the runner tracking. The race sent out links to a partner company that handles their tracking, RaceJoy. The app was super clunky and not the greatest to use. First off the bat, it kept crashing on me. So much that I uninstalled and reinstalled and had a bit better luck. Secondly, in order to track a runner, you had to have the app running in the background, which drained the battery some. Also, for the Relay, you had to not only have the app running, but had to physically take out your phone and hit a button on the app to start your leg for it to record your leg. So not only did you have to run with your phone (some people don't) you had to have you phone out, app on, start the leg and then store your phone at the start of your leg. Our final leg had so much issue with this that he somehow managed to delete himself from the team on the app while trying to start his leg, which took up valuable time and led to us having issues tracking him. I've run other races with tracking and this one was by far the least user friendly. 

The Epic Finish

All good things must come to an end, and we were are so excited to see the final leg member of our team round the last corner and head towards the finisher chute. The whole team hopped onto the course and ran in with him in one big, beautiful line of orange with an overall finish time of 3:51:11. 

The other team came in the same way, shortly after with a finish time of 3:35:31. After pictures and beer and celebrating at the after party, we made our way back to our cars (just a short walk) and left Uptown Charlotte feeling victorious, ready to do it again next year.

Team 1 Finisher Photo

Team 2 Finisher Photo

And of course, Epic Shot of the BLING