5 Key Steps to Surviving a 10k

It’s Labor Day Weekend in the Queen City. It’s not too long before dawn and I am headed to the Around the Crown 10k in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Around the Crown 10k is a fairly new race to the physical fitness scene having its inaugural run in 2021. In just 2 years the race has grown to over 5,000 participants and works to support local non-profit organizations such as Sustain Charlotte, RunningWorks and Carolina Farm Trust with annual giving of $25,000+ to each organization.

Prepare accordingly

I am pinning on bib number 6539 thinking about how it was a game time decision to even go ahead and participate. At around 5:00pm or so the night before, I texted someone that I know was going to race and said “You know what? I think I will go”. With the decision finally made, I start to go through my email to look for the race instructions because at this point I don’t have the slightest clue about where to go or what to do. I found out that the race expo is that same day from 11am to 6pm. Uh well, it’s 5:47pm now. So, yea, umm, no I don’t think I am going to make it. Boy, have I started to know myself because I actually had my race packet mailed to me! My thought process when ordering must have been that if just in case I didn't make it to the Expo it wouldn’t matter since I already had delivered the thing that I needed most.

Park Smart

The race is starting at Truist Field and ending at the same location. I park my car at a Park Mobile lot 1 block from Truist Field so it is really close. This is intentional. I know at the end of the race the last thing I will want to do is walk another two, three, four or five miles to get back to my car. Therefore, I park as close as possible because even if you're stuck in after race traffic I am nice and comfortable sitting in my car. Also, it’s commonplace for sponsors to provide a ton of freebies. By the time you are ready to head back to your vehicle you will likely be carrying a bunch of goodies that you've received at the end of the race. Typical giveaways are usually the race t-shirt, water, fruit (mainly bananas), and sports juices/drinks. Some atypical giveaways I’ve seen are customarily related to the theme of the events such as hot chocolate, beer, donuts, and drawstring bags.

Use the restroom beforehand

One thing that I liked about this race is that they had the baseball stadium open for us to go in to register if you hadn’t already, meet up with friends or run groups, stretch and use the restrooms. This last one is super nice because one thing that I can't stand is having to use a porta-potty at a large event. I've learned also, from previous races, that it is best to use the restroom before you start the race. When you stop in the middle you are subject to lines and long wait times and will lose whatever timing pace you started with. At my first long distance race, a half marathon at Walt Disney World, I stopped to use the bathroom around the 6th or 7th mile and unbeknownst to me ended up behind the last leg Pacesetter, also known as the balloon lady because she carries a balloon so you can spot her in the crowd. As I got back into a sustainable pace a race attendant on a bike came by to let me know (and the others behind and around me) that we had to catch up with the balloon lady before the next mile marker or get swept out of the race. I looked up ahead to see the littlest speck of a balloon. What is the heck?!?! How did I end up so far behind? I gave it my best effort but I just couldn’t catch up in the time required and ended up getting swept out of the race at mile marker 8.

Set Goals (Modify as Needed)

This experience which gave me race PTSD caused me to start creating goals for all my future races. The main one being “don't get on the bus; don't get swept out of the race; finish” and that was no different for today. Remember the friend I called to tell her that I was going to be attending the race? I met up with her and her friend at the beginning of the race. Luckily, we were all in the same corral. A race corral is a sectioned off area at the start of a race, where runners are grouped together by their projected pace. The first corral will have wheelchairs and strollers for those races that have them participating, otherwise the fastest runners are in the first corral and the slowest in the last. As we were waiting for the race to start and our corral to be released we snapped a couple of pictures and said for this race we just want to have fun and finish the race. Typically, at the start of the race everyone takes off running (pretty much you want to look good in the official photos and videos, lol). We start off running and immediately I realize that these two ladies are real time runners and that I was not going to be able to keep pace with them for the length of this race. I ran for a little bit and knew that I was overexerting myself which isn’t good when you are just a few paces from the start line with 6+ miles ahead of you to go. So I told them that I couldn’t run the entire time and that I needed to stop to walk. It's nice when you have friends that are like “oh no it's okay, we'll stay with you” but I knew this was their first race and they've been practicing so I didn’t want to hold them back. And y’all I am so glad that they listened and went on ahead without me because when I say I was bringing in the rear, you don’t even understand.

Back to goals, by the time I got to the 1 mile marker I knew that the first goal of “have fun” was out of the window. I was NOT having fun. The second goal of “finish the race” wasn’t looking to go either. I had overexerted myself early on and didn't feel good where I was in the race and if I could make it to the end. So what do I do now? If I was going to make it to the end I needed to set new goals.

How the around the crown race goes, is that about 5k of the 10K is on the actual Interstate 277 which circles around Uptown Charlotte. Mile 0 to 1 is run on the streets to get us to the highway ramp, miles 1 to 4 are on the highway and miles 4 to 6 are on the streets to bring us back to the finish line. Having passed the first mile marker I created the goal of “get off the highway”. The race has a quick required pace because there is only so much time that a city can keep one of their main highways closed. I knew that if I was going to stay off the “get swept bus” that I had to make it off the highway. Now, you are probably thinking, did she even train for this thing? Like, I know it was a last minute decision to participate but she had to have some idea she was going to do it when she you know SIGNED UP so why isn’t she ready. Ok, I’ll tell you. I did practice. Throughout the summer I walked 3 times a week on one of the local greenways. During that time I walked about 4 miles or so each time but what I realized was the pace I was walking was closer to a 20 minute/mile being that we were doing about four miles in just under 90 minutes. In reality, this race asked participants to maintain a 13:45 minute/mile so that 20 min/mile was not the pace that I needed to be successful. The pace and distance tracking app that I use, RunKeeper told me I started out around 16:15 minute/mile and with the 5 minute increment notifications it just kept ticking up, 16:30 minute/mile; 16:50 minute/mile; 17+ minute/mile and so forth and so on.

But guess what, despite the slowdown I did make it off the highway! Modified goal 1 is a check! Yay, goal 1 down but um, yea, that only brought me to mile 4. You want me to go 2 more miles?!?! Ok, bring back goal 2, “finish the f*&^ing race”. You know how you start cursing and misbehaving when you’re tired and fed up? That’s the part we have reached at this point.

Finish Strong

Earlier, in the first mile when we were doing the running we passed a group of ladies that were walking together. Right as I was exiting the highway, they passed me and then stopped to take some photos at the 4 mile marker. I caught back up to them and decided to stick with them for the remainder of the race. They had some music going and there was enough of them to be a big enough crowd where I didn't feel like I was the last one.

This is the point where you have to dig deep. You can do it, you just have to hang it there. Not too long after passing that 4th mile I look up and realize I am at an intersection 1 block from where my car is parked. Talk about a struggle! My thought process was like “oh man, I can make this left and jump in this car and be to the house before I ever make it to the finish line”. I'm glad that I had decided to join that little group because without having made that conscientious decision it would have been too easy to give up right then and there. I didn't want to branch off from the group right at that point so I just kept going and muscled through. It was less than a mile and a half to go and I knew that was something I could do.

It’s when you make those decisions to keep going through the difficulties is when insult comes to join injury. Just as we got a few blocks past that pivotal intersection here come the guys picking up the cones used to mark the course. Y’all they are packing up the race and we still have a mile to go! By the time we got close to the finish line people that had already finished were heading back to their cars, so now we're mixing and mingling in with the finishers. When people realize we are still running they cheer us on, so that was nice. We finally make it through to the end. As we cross the finish line the announcers welcome you by name. I like to think that is a benefit of coming in at the end and they don’t do that for those in the beginning when they arrive in droves but really I never arrive at that time to find out, lol. But at the end of it all I can say is that by using the steps of being prepared, parking smart, using the restroom ahead of time, setting goals, and finishing strong I got it done! If you have never done a 10k (or any length race) before I hope these steps help you to know that you can do it. Search for a race nearby and sign up. Let me know which one you signed up for and how you did. I look forward to seeing you out on the pavement.