Asheville Half Marathon

My birthday was on June 5th, so for my weekend I went to Asheville!  Ray and I had lots of fun, ate lots of local food, and had a nice weekend away.

But, of course, it included the Asheville Half on June 7th, Saturday.  I'm not going to go into a lot of details, I'll sum it up in a few words.  Hills.  Heat.  Hills.  Hills.

It was an inaugural race, but it was put on by the people who run the Cooper River Bridge Run, which is a 10k that's been going on for 35 years I think, in Charleston, SC.  Despite this history, I had a lot of problems with the race.  Some were being a back-of-the-pack-er issues (I ended up walking completely after mile 5 of so, ending just under 4 hours), which should not have been an issue since that was the advertised cut off time, and the race indicated they were walker friendly.  I also had/have an issue with my time.  My starting time was recorded, but I have no finish time.  I called their "office", which I believe to be a cell phone number whose voicemail box was full already, due to other complaints (I know this from their Facebook page).  I called originally June 10th, couldn't leave a voicemail, but was called back later that day from a different number because they saw the missed call.  I let them know what was happening, and they said they would look into it and contact me back.    I had actually somewhat forgotten about it, and ended up calling back on 6/24, and the phone was actually answered.  I have no idea by who, because they just answered with a "hello" despite it being an office phone, which threw me off as well.  Got an e-mail from the director that I was copied on, going out to two other people, the next day, just asking them to update my chip time to 4 hours.  First of all, I told them it was just under 4 hours, and I'd rather have the real time than just have them put a time in!  But, despite that, I haven't heard back from them.  I just e-mailed them again today because this post reminded me of it.

So, overall, I'm not too impressed.  They also advertised music every mile.  I didn't see a station for it each mile, and also most of the bands/musicians were shut down by the time I got there, so that was disappointing as well.

I highly doubt that I'll do this race again in the future, but I may definitely still go to Asheville for my birthday weekend.  Maybe I'll just spectate and cheer others on from now on.

I think that catches me up on race recaps.  I've been doing less because of the summer heat.  Have you taken a summer break at all?

Lauren