Race Review: Charleston Challenge Mid-Winter Classic

A challenge in more ways than one

This February race is one of the few in our area that I’d never run, until this year. In past years, I had been one of the pacers for the half or full marathon training that our running club sponsors ahead of the Illinois Race Weekend in late April.

This year, as regular readers know, I’m training for Boston, and there’s no full marathon at Illinois, so I’m not pacing those long runs. That freed me up to give this race a try.

Let’s take a closer look:

Registration

There is both online and paper registration for this race, along with three distance options: 5k, 10k or 15k. I registered for the 15k online for the very reasonable price of $25. The fee went up to $35 about ten days before the race. Note that price doesn’t include any race swag, which was available for an additional fee (long sleeve t-shirt $15, beanie $6, gloves $6). Online registrants had to get the race swag the day of the race if they were interested.

The online registration was done via active.com and I had no issues.

Race Information

All the necessary information was listed on the race website. It’s an event put on by the City of Charleston Parks and Recreation department. It takes a few clicks to get there from a Google search, but once you get to the right place, you can find everything you need, including a map of the race course, schedule of events, etc.

Packet Pickup

All packets were available for race day pickup starting 90 minutes before the start of the 15k at 10:00am. That’s also when race day registration opened. Pickup was inside the Carl Sandberg elementary school, and everything went smoothly.

One small wrinkle with this race is that it uses timing chips that you fasten to your shoe, rather than those that are attached to the race bib. It was the first time I can ever remember using one of these, and it took me a bit of finagling to get it securely fastened. That said, there were no issues with the chip timing.

Race Start

This race had a staggered start for the three distances. The 15k started at 10:00am, the 10k runners took off at 10:15, and the 5k was the last race to start at 10:30. It was a pretty standard race start, with the director giving a few final instructions before sounding the horn to send us off.

The Course

This race course had something we don’t get much of in Champaign-Urbana: hills. And there were quite a few of them. It was a welcome change to most of the road races in our area, and I enjoyed most of it.

There was something else that we have plenty of in C-U: wind. It was gusting out of the south at 30+mph for most of the race. That made the first few miles even more challenging.

We started with a short loop near the start to add about a tenth of a mile before hitting the main course. We worked our way southeast for several blocks before heading south for a little more than a mile and out of town. There were a couple of rolling hills, but the wind was the big obstacle here.

Turning west gave us a bit of a break from the wind. After about half a mile, we made a left onto a busier road, but only for about 50 feet before making a quick right and heading west once again.

We hit a bend in the road at about mile four, which is where the one water stop in the race came. It was in a pretty good spot, and the volunteer was handing out 16 oz. bottles of water. I considered carrying it with me, but decided just to take a couple of quick drinks before tossing it in a box about 100 feet down the road. Because this is a smaller race, there were no volunteers on the course between the water stop and about mile 9.

We weaved our way around several turns over the next mile before taking a right to head north just after mile 5, so the next mile and a half was downwind. There were a couple of hills here as well, but none were killers.

At about mile 6.5, we turned east. And this is where I messed up. I was with one other runner for about the first two miles of the race. I began to pull away from him after that, and by this point, I couldn’t see him behind me at all. I kept telling myself just to stay on course, not miss a turn, and I would win the race.

I missed a turn.

Just before mile 7, we were supposed to turn right and head south again. I kept going straight. All the other turns were well-marked. Given that no one else missed the turn or mentioned any problems, I can only assume that I just missed the sign. I ran about half a mile before I realized my mistake. I turned back, and after hitting a couple of dead ends, finally got back on course.

Looking at my GPS watch, I figured I had run about a mile extra. So, the big hill I was told would be coming just before mile 8, came for me at mile 9. Considering the extra distance I had already run, I didn’t handle it too badly. I think the adrenaline that kicked in when I realized my mistake was helping me here.

Shortly after the top of that hill, we were back in town. After a couple of turns I recognized where I was from the drive into town. I crossed the finish line in 1:14:21, about nine minutes slower than I was hoping for, but also with an extra 1.1 miles of distance according to my watch. It was a painful second place finish.

Finish Line/Post-Race

After taking a minute to think about my mistake, I went into the school cafeteria and enjoyed some very generous refreshments. There were bananas, oranges, granola bars, pizza and bottled water.

There was also a very nice raffle, where I won a race coffee mug. I collected my age group award, which was a nice throw blanket that rolls up into a carrying case. It was the exact same prize I would have won with a first place overall finish, so nothing lost there.

Collecting my bittersweet age group award after the race.

Final Thoughts

I will always remember this race for the missed turn, and I’ll always remember the course very well for that reason. That aside, it was a very enjoyable event that I plan to run again in the future.

It would be nice if there were a few more volunteers out on the course to help with those turns in rural areas, but I understand that isn’t always feasible for smaller races. All the volunteers I encountered at this race were helpful and cheerful, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

About the only other thing I would ask for is maybe to have one piece of race swag included in the standard registration fee, but that’s also a small quibble for a smaller race. Do I really need any more race swag? Not especially, if my dresser and hat/glove bin are any indication.

I’ll give this race 4.5 out of 5 stars and gladly run it again.

If you’ve run the Mid-Winter Classic, I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments.

Happy running!