Easley is a pretty little city which we have visited only a couple of times in the past, mostly to eat lunch at The Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar, part of a small chain of restaurants, one of which we used to enjoy in Morehead City before they closed. The plan was to run the race and then enjoy seafood and beer afterward, and it sounded like an excellent plan. We arrived in plenty of time to pick up our race packets at the Pint Station, a tap room just down the street from the restaurant, and warm up a little before the start. I found a nice park nearby with a gazebo and a fountain, the perfect place for pre-race Tai Chi.
For some reason, I had formed the impression that this race would be flat. There is a railroad that runs parallel to Main Street (and railroad lines are invariably flat), and visiting here in the past we had not noticed many hills. We could not have been more wrong, we soon learned. Nearly 500 runners, many dressed in festive green St. Patrick’s Day attire, started off on Main Street, ran just a block or so, and then abruptly turned down a steep hill. From that low point, the course turned right, then right again, to finish on Main Street, and at every turn we seemed to climb uphill. I kept thinking, at some point we are bound to start going downhill to the finish, but through some mysterious quirk of physics it never did. To make things more difficult, the last mile or so was on sidewalks, and the last quarter mile was on crowded sidewalks thronged with onlookers in front of the Shuckin' Shack and the Pint Station.
Martha had been walking on the treadmill in Atlantic Beach
but had not logged many miles out on the roads as often as she would have
liked. To add insult to injury (or
perhaps injury to insult), just a block from the finish line a small dog on the
end of a long leash held by a careless woman ran out in front of her and
tripped her, and she fell hard on the street. She was helped up by a volunteer and
finished anyway, but I am sure it affected her finish time. Readers of this blog can see her
bloodied knees in the photos if they look closely.
Nevertheless, and despite her protestations before the race that she
might walk the entire course instead of running, she finished in a time of 38:33, first place in
her age group. I finished in 44:59 and waited
at the finish for her to cross the line until I spotted her across the street
and realized she had already finished.
At the award ceremony, I was surprised to learn that I, too, had taken first
place in my age group. Sometimes all you have to do is show up.
Older runners like ourselves have to wait a long time at the awards ceremony, especially in a race with five-year age groups (I was in the second to last age group, right before the 80 and over). First, second, and third place podiums had been set up, which I have seldom seen in a 5-K race, and Martha gamely climbed to the highest podium for her award and photo. As for myself, I waved, smiled, and remained standing behind a podium that seemed insurmountable to me.
It had been a beautiful day for a race: clear blue skies, no wind at all, and a temperature of 60 degrees, which climbed into the seventies by the afternoon. We enjoyed lunch at the Shuckin Shack as planned, along with a good IPA, and then walked around much of the afternoon to help our hill-battered legs recover. Many others were doing the same, recognizable by their bright green race shirts, long-sleeved cotton with a picture of (naturally) a leprechaun on the front, Easley is a place we will visit again to enjoy its downtown parks, shops, and restaurants, and perhaps we might even try to complete this race next year when we are both in better condition, and hopefully will not be tripped by little dogs.
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