The City of Oaks course starts on the campus of NC State University, then goes through Downtown Raleigh before making its way out to Umstead Park (where the big hills await) and finally back to NC State. The trails and hills of Umstead Park make the course very challenging indeed and certainly not a course to attempt to set a PR on. The Half Marathon course avoids Umstead Park completely but still has some decent size elevation changes.
On Sunday morning at 6:15am, Elizabeth and I left the house and drove to my position in Downtown Raleigh. We were in position (near the mile 4 marker) at 6:45. I had been asked to monitor a simple intersection where a side road joined the road that the runners would be running on and I didn't expect to see much traffic.
The race was set to begin at 7am so we expected to see the first runners pass just after 7:20. It was a cold (34F, 1C) but dry morning which was probably a few degrees colder than most runners would have liked, so we stayed in the car until just before 7:20, at which time I positioned the car across the road to ensure that no cars could slip past me and out on to the course. I was wrapped up warm with lots of layers and my hat and gloves when the Half Marathon leaders passed just after 7:21am.
The three shown in the photo below took the first three places in the Half Marathon, with the guy in third place here winning $1000 with a time of 1:04:35
The runners began to come thick and fast as the 3300 or so runners in the Half and Full Marathon made their way past the 4 mile point at their own speed. It was nice to be working at a quiet intersection where I was able to provide some encouragement to the runners.
Elizabeth had decided to join me mainly because our friend Shane was running his first Half Marathon and she wanted to provide him with some encouragement as well as snap some photos of him running. Unfortunately, the sun decided to come up over a building on the opposite side of the street just as Shane was passing - and the best we could do was the photo that is shown below!
Elizabeth was disappointed that she hadn't managed to get a good photo, so we decided that we'd try and get to the Mile 12 marker later in the race to take another one. We did snap a photo of the 4:30 Marathon Pace group and their leader with his fancy headgear (which he wore for the entire race!)
When the final runners passed, we were released from our duties and joined our friends who happened to be working the next intersection for some breakfast. We calculated what time we'd expect Shane to be at the Mile 12 marker and attempted to make our way in the car to that point on the course. It became apparently fairly quickly that we wouldn't be able to get to the Mile 12 marker, however, we happened across the runners approaching Mile 11 and figured that we had a 50/50 chance that Shane wouldn't have passed yet. We parked and got in position to take a photo and within 2 minutes Elizabeth spotted Shane and shouted encouragement to him. This time, the sun was behind us, and she managed to get a great photo!
We then headed home so that Elizabeth could get some things done in the Nursery with her friend Allison. Officer Ken called me and asked if I wanted to go down to the finish area with him to see the end of the race and provide some support for Steph' who had been given a course monitor position right near the finish line.We arrived at the NC State campus just in time to see the 4:15 pace group round the corner with less that half a mile to go. We spent the next 2 hours providing encouragement to the runners as they neared the finish - by this time, they were desperately in need of whatever encouragement we could provide them and we were happy to oblige.
Volunteering is always rewarding, regardless of the distance, but there is something special about seeing a runner complete a Marathon or Half Marathon that they have trained for for months and maybe I'll volunteer again at the City of Oaks Marathon again next year!
Congratulations to Shane on completing his first Half Marathon!
I'm famous! Thanks for the support, Liz and Dave!
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