Rocktoberfest 1/2 Marathon

 As I move into the last phase of my marathon training, I was looking around for a longer race to test my fitness. The Rocktoberfest 1/2 marathon near Rockhill, SC seemed like it would fit my needs very well. 

The race takes place in the Riverwalk district running from the bike park along surface streets to the Riverwalk Greenway and back. 

Having never been here before, I was interested to see the area. 

We start up on the cycling track and run about a mile on it. Then, we hit some surface streets for a couple of more miles before finally hitting the greenway. Most of this was well marked. Although, we did come to a round-a-bout. Here I was a bit confused about which direction to take. Clearly, I could see that we were going to the left. However, this meant crossing over and running the nearly complete circle before exiting back to the road that we were originating. In the end, I did take the long way, but it was begrudgingly. 

From the description, I knew the greenway section ran along the river. I was expecting this to be mostly flat. However, in several places, the greenway veers away from the river and throws a nice hill in our way. The hills were just steep enough to make one hate them. 

They did detour us around one section of the greenway. This section was closed do the recent hurricane. At least, this is what I am assuming. 

After the turn around, the runners around started to string out. I found myself running pretty much solo as I came back to the finish. 

From the greenway, the course is a bit of an uphill grind to the finish. My legs were hurting pretty good as I entered back to where the criterium track was located.  I could look right and see the finish, but I had to turn left and do a loop of the criterium course to reach the finish. 

My goal was to run around 1:25, and I ran 1:25:52. I finished 7 OA, and 1st in my age group. In retrospect, I found this course to be tougher than I expected. The final miles tested my ability to continue to push even when my legs didn't want to do so anymore. 

The Cool Down Runner