Welcome to the long-awaited Makeshift Marathon 2020 PreBlast. Before we get into it, a little housekeeping…
Disclaimer: This is not an official event and is not sanctioned by F3 or FiA. There will be no road closures, medical professionals, safety personnel or public safety officials. Race organizers will not be held liable for any accidents, injuries, illnesses, deaths or medical emergencies experienced during or after Makeshift Marathon 2020. Participation is at your own risk. By registering for and/or participating in this event, you agree to these terms and conditions.
Good times! When a PreBlast leads off with a disclaimer you know you have something exceptionally #CSAUP on your hands.
So, what is this? Simply put, a contingent of local runners who had their Fall races canceled put their heads together and developed their own race in Waxhaw/Marvin/South Charlotte. Several options are available, including a full marathon, marathon relay (any number of teammates), half marathon and 10k. Ruckers are welcome. There will be aid stations with water and participants will have the opportunity to have their own fuel/hydration waiting for them at each station.
Why? For the love of the sport, and to provide like-minded family and friends with the opportunity the race like it’s not 2020, while raising funds for a good cause.
Who? Open to members of F3, FiA, family and friends. Please do not advertise/share on social media.
When? Saturday, November 14th at 7AM. In the event of inclement weather, the make-up date is Sunday, November 15th.
Where? Parking and race start/finish are in front of Kohl’s on Rea Rd. & Tom Short Rd in Waxhaw (601 Sherman Pl, Waxhaw, NC 28173).
Course:
Aid Stations:
Misc:
Click HERE to register.
Click HERE to sign-up for a volunteer timeslot
Another week and another virtual race.
This week the race is a virtual marathon with 4 team 5 mile legs and 1 team 6.2 mile run.
One thing was for sure, we were going to have to take a field trip if we were going to find a course that wasn’t all hills.
The greenway was an option but with all the recent rain it was under water and muddy.
Providence CC has a nice 1 mile downhill start and a pretty flattish 1.7 mile loop. That was our only option decided on and it was a go.
The five mile crew would do two loops and a little extra to get 5 and the 6.2 leg would do two loops and then a a longer out and back.
Easy Button is still on the IR and we hope to see you back out soon. Dasher no called no showed, Deadwood was picking up a new dog in Hillsboro, and Glidah went to White Lake searching for a flatter course.
That left YHC, Bottlecap, Hollywood, and Wolverine as the possible runners.
A car flew by me on the way up to Waverly this morning that looked to be Hollywood. However he wasn’t at Waverly when I arrived so he either ghosted us or it wasn’t him.
So then there were three.
Here’s how it went down:
The first mile was great going downhill and fast splits were handed out like party favors to everyone. The rest of the miles went by pretty quickly as there are 6 left turns on the main loop and 12 left turns total keeps things super interesting less miserable.
– Bottlecap ran his 5 miles at a 6:48 pace, great job.
– Wolverine ran his 5 miles at a 6:42 pace, excellent.
– YHC ran his 6.2 mile leg at a 6:40 pace.
Great job everyone. This was my first 10k for time in years and I personally needed the push to get out there, thank you. Next week it gets real as EVERYONE is running 6.2 miles. It’s also our LAST virtual race weekend so let’s see a good showing.
14 PAX met near the water tower for an extremely simple beat down. Keeping the running to a minimum, the complaining was still evident but good natured.
Warm-up near the Tack Exchange – Disclaimer and Introduction with apology to those who attended Doc’s Jack Webb beating.
The Thang:
THE WORKOUT
Combine with your Partner – 100 Crab Cakes, 200 Scorpion Dry Docks, 300 LBCs, 400 Plank Jacks and 500 Merkins – while partner runs to other end of the court to complete 10 Squats
Moleskin:
A very impressive and hard working group all around even as the Merkins got very sloppy towards the end with many teams not quite hitting the 500 but getting very close. Several rounds of exercises were done til failure, and the partner was there to pick them up and switch off.
Shout out Doughboy, Maple Syrup, Rubbermaid and Big10 who endured the day after experiencing Doc’s own Jack Webb Hell yesterday. But all of them still powered through with all they had.
My partner Shake ‘n’ Bake was the man as no Form police will ever catch him not up to snuff cranking out each exercise precisely.
Beckham, Paper Jam, Dana, and Fuse (towel in hand) put it all out there with minimal complaints and just a few jabs. Nice job powering though.
Anvil, extremely impressed with Iron and Ore. Nice job, always good to see the 2.0s participating while Ore was running around most of us like we were standing still
Banjo – Nice to meet you sir and good job enduring a tough workout. Thank you for making Floater your first official workout as we look forward to seeing you again.
Lastly, absolute favorite part was in the middle of squats when Rubbermaid stopped, turned to me and told me that I suck. At the moment, I agreed with him.
Announcements:
Wrap up and Prayer:
Doughboy took us out with a special mention of Austin (18-year-old, who recently suffered a heart attack) who needs our prayers. Thank you, Anvil, for bringing this to our attention.
The morning started out strange. But doesn’t every Monday when we are committing to drag ourselves out of bed after a summer weekend in order to run 5 miles. This is where we ran:
THE THANG:
Up Adrey Kell Rd past the high school and make a right into the first neighborhood. Make an immediate left onto Zackery Ave, right on Pomerane Pl. left on Brandon Brook Drive and right on Old Adrey Kell. Into another neighborhood running on Honeynut, Hazelview, Linden Tree and Society Street. Leave the neighborhood, cross Community House Rd to do a short loop of Highgrove Street, Fortbridge Lane, Summer Club Rd., Pemswood St and back out to Community House, left on Adrey Kell and back to the AO for stretching by Paper Jam
MOLESKIN:
The morning seemed normal enough, as I rounded the corner there was Bunker’s SUV parked in his spot and I was ready to do my warm up routine. The next thing I knew there was a silver pick up truck pulling up. I figured it had to be Depth Charge. I was wrong. It was Bratwurst arriving a little after 5. If that was not strange enough, Bunker announced that he is running with me this morning. I became immediately concerned that he injured himself or may have been feeling sick this morning. He assured me that all was well, this was a new marathon training program that he is working on which requires a PJ pace on Monday. So I guess I am now training for a marathon. To top it off, Bratwurst started running in the opposite direction (towards the big fountain) to go thru the shopping center instead of in the direction of the new Shake Shack.
Glad Enron brought us back to normal with a nice take out.
Another Monday in the books.
The Fort Mill Pax created a 5K Relay CSAUP a couple years ago that was a rousing success. In the inaugural year, BTW, it was won by SOB/UC men.
The Rock Hill Pax saw this, and raised it up to a marathon relay, dubbing it The Rooster (there’s probably a story in the here, but your imagination may work just as well). 26.2 miles of suck, spread over 5 Pax.
Partner 1 = Miles 1, 6, 11, 16, 21 = Jingles
Partner 2 = Miles 2, 7, 12, 17, 22 = Old MacDonald
Partner 3 = Miles 3, 8, 13, 18, 23 = Posse
Partner 4 = Miles 4, 9, 14, 19, 24 = Ranger
Partner 5 = Miles 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 = Land Shark
Wait – who does Mile 26 (& 0.2)? The whole group runs together.
So each person will run 6 miles; just not all at once. It is basically the Joe Davis 10K from 2 weeks ago, spread out over several hours.
Sounds pretty awesome, right? I know!
The Warm Up
Meet at Indian Land Elementary to clown car to Winthrop Coliseum.
Let me pause to equate clown car’ing as the secret 2nd F. YHC clown car’ed on Friday, Saturday morning, & Saturday afternoon – a total of 10 other Pax spread across 3 rides. Each conversation was rich and diverse. Not being all that much of a talker in person, I tend to shy away from the clown car. I worry about the Car Ride of Silence. It has proven itself time and again to be a false fear. The boys on Screech Owl do love them some clown car’ing; they are my shining beacon of another street. There are some other pairings out there (Longhorn & Hooch, Deflated & Foundation), but I don’t know of trips & quads like Screech Owl. If you haven’t done it (or done it in a while), time to step into that other man’s car.
Anyhoo…
The warm up continued with bringing our gear out to a pre-dawn field in Rock Hill. Then offering to help set up pop-up tents of other teams who thought about bringing fire pits or gas heaters. It was everyone’s first rodeo, but some were MUCH more experienced than others.
The Thang
Prior to the start, Rock Hill’s Popeye gave a few words. RH Popeye’s day job is Public Relations Officer for either RHPD or York County Sherriff’s. So when the 4 officers were shot last week (with the YCSD officer dying from his wounds a few days ago), it was Popeye in the public eye across all media. He had a range of emotions in those few minutes, and rightfully so. Relief at being able to unplug from that strain for a little while as he surrounds himself with a different group of brothers. Regret at not being able to see his fallen comrade again, missing his hugs and his good works. Reaffirmation that he and all past and future law enforcement officers would literally take a bullet for you. For me. For anyone else in harm’s way. It was a humbling reminder of what kind of life and death choices others make so I can go about my day in my own little bubble.
Dawn breaks on a beautiful open field with a lake that we will be circling. The path is all paved. It is 28°. Jingles and I are ecstatic, because that makes it 20° warmer than when we ran the Joe Davis a couple weeks earlier.
Jingles runs the first mile and brings back intel that the loop isn’t actually 1 mile. It’s 1.3 miles. OM confirms this. At this point, these 2 begin Beautiful Minding / NASCAR Crew Chiefing the ramifications of such news. OM starts with taking our individual lap times and doing some kind of New Age Math on figuring out our actual mile times. Jingles figures out we won’t have to do all 5 laps apiece to get to 26.2; that we’ll get to it much sooner. This realization comes to all the teams at one point or another. I’m certain we were first in realization & calculations (hence the title).
When it was all done, we ended up doing 31 miles in a total time of 3 hours 25 minutes. I went to school in South Carolina, so if there’s any mathematical disparity in what I just wrote, I don’t want to hear about it.
Frosty Moleskin
Ranger (my 2.0) learned several things. He learned that running with someone makes everything better. On his second lap, he just happened to start with Dr. Suess. Don’t know what region he’s from, but they had a full conversation at a 7:30 pace(?!?). It was over before he knew it, but those few minutes was all it took for him to learn that life lesson. They were never able to synch up again on future laps. Ranger also didn’t see Dr. Suess when it was time to leave. Another life lesson – tell those you meet how much they matter to you RIGHT THEN, even if it’s only for a short time. And a bonus lesson for those of you reading – you never know how much of an impact you will make to someone. Double bonus – those moments of impact, may be just that – moments.
Ranger suffers from the same mindless eating that his father does. Ate too much between laps 2 & 3, so laps 3 on didn’t treat him well. However, when his time came, he would step up for his leg of the run. When he wanted to walk one of the later laps, he asked Land Shark if they could run together. Clearly an upgrade from what I would have done, even a year ago. I would have run during the part when my crew could see me, then walk the rest of the hidden way. Ranger chooses to #shieldlock with someone faster. Someone who will pull more out of him. If I were in his shoes, I would have run with someone much slower, so I would not have to expect so much out of myself.
I became Captain Obvious to him in the car afterwards. “When you come up against adversity, will you choose to saddle up with someone who will push you to your full measure, or will you look for someone who will encourage you to take the easy, mediocre, least effort, least growth way?” The intellectual answer seems obvious, but making the courageous choice has been difficult for me. I do find that I am making the hard choice more often, with less friction, since joining F3.
Jingles has a lion heart. He tweaked his knee playing with his boys during Snowmageddon this week. He didn’t say anything until the convergence on Friday. I think he only said something to explain why he may be a little slower than expected. There was never a doubt to him that he wouldn’t be out there come Saturday morning. With each lap, the pain continued to grow. Determined to do his laps, but worried about the time, he asked Old MacDonald to partner with him (see above life lessons). At the end of the event, visibly limping, he admitted that he had 2 Aleve in his pocket the whole time. But he didn’t want to take them to mask the pain, so as to not make a tweak potentially turn into something worse (hopefully I didn’t violate some HIPPA thing just now; hopefully the disclaimer about not suing me also covers medical). Sound, practical thinking. As for me, I’m allergic to pain. I would have downed whatever I could have to numb the pain. With that many days to think about the pain, I would have likely tapped out or looked for a replacement. Jingles, you continue to reveal more of your heart with each race I run with you. Thanks for sharing.
Land Shark was the first to join the team. Spurred by a desire to make the IL track team this spring, he thought this would be great conditioning / testing grounds. He will be judged by his mile time, so why not test it 5 or 6 times in a day? Find someone to chase down. Find your stride. Find your breath. Find your rhythm. He was put on the anchor leg because this would be the person who would have to run the final lap, then immediately go right back out there to run again with the whole group. And the other 4 would have a break not afforded to the 5th. He accepted it without hesitation or argument. If you’ve been in the workouts with him, he’s the epitome of “less talk, more work”. But he did speak up quite a bit during the CSAUP. And it was all positive encouragement. He’s a lifter. You want this one on your team. I’m calling dibs for the next set of partner work.
Old MacDonald. At first, he was willing to let LS run this thing as the only member of the MacDonald family. But it only took a few hours to realize that this would be a great bonding experience with his son. If you’ve never heard this before, Steven Covey talks about being an effective parent means spending time not just as a family, but spending time as one parent : one child. Have a special time / event / phrase that only the 2 of you share. Each one learns their own uniqueness, which gives them the confidence to express their uniqueness when the group needs that gift. Solid work, Mac. I also learned that he is an exceptional planner. Once we got the group together, I should have just handed off the controls to Old M. It took me to the last minute to get the info out to the group. He also is much better with names than I am. I called our group “O.G.’s & Upgrades”, but he had a string of alternates. My favorites: “3+Two.0”. “Generation Gap”, “We Thought This Was a 5K”, and my winner, “The Young & the Rest of Us”. He is also to blame for this backblast. I had no intention of doing one (why start now?), but he slid a compliment with an assumptive close so fast, I didn’t realize I just said yes to writing this up. Not that this should have been kept secret, but it’s taken longer to write this up that it did to run the marathon. Still, you all deserve to know the kind of people you run around with. If there’s someone you should run around with more, it’s this guy.
Did I learn anything about myself? Sure.
I’m close enough to breaking the 9:00 minute mile that it makes me want to start working on that.
I’m hard on my son until I write up something like this to realize he’s making better decisions than I did at that age. It’s a harder time, yet he’s handling it better.
I’m surrounded by so many great people everywhere I go now. It’s so pervasive that my thinking is shifting away from “I don’t belong here” to “where do I fit?” It excites and scares me.
I gotta write shorter backblasts if I ever want to see my family again.
On November 11, Four primary teams pushing three chariots and countless support PAX ran the Charlotte Marathon Relay. Each leg was 4.2 to 6.2 miles and together covered the entire course.
Strong effort was put in by Tolkien and a crew to identify 14 kids with special needs to join us on the journey. At each leg riders and runners were transitioned out (Except for Owen who got to double down on two legs!)
Team Fast Twitch: Pop Tart, Gummy, Turkey Leg, Rachel, Rock Thrill, Tootie, Mermaid, Utah, Mr. Brady & Alf. Riders: JJ, Devon, Luke, Amelia, and Lucas.
Team Swift: Nard Dog, Bratwurst, Depth Charge, Citgo, & Thin Mint. Riders: Jayson, Georgia, Kinzey, Sophie and Ava.
Team Metro: Subway, 20/20, Gitmo, Nash, & Scabby. Riders: Ray-Ray, Andrew, Owen, Myles.
Moleskine:
I was nervous heading into race day. The forecast a week out showed reasonably warm temps but as we got closer to race day it settled in to be low to mid 30 degrees for the entire race. I was worried that parents would hesitate and pull out of the race, but not a single one did. And 14 kids bundled up and smiled the entire race. Along the way we got nothing but huge cheers from the crowd. The kind of cheering I would expect to be normally reserved for those guys leading the marathon but, I don’t ever plan on being that close to the lead to hear it!
I also need to give a huge shout out to the parents of each of these kids. They were all awesome to be around. Such a positive and excited group of mom’s and dad’s who work so hard every day and night to raise these boys and girls. Not to mention the mom of Jayson, Ray-Ray and JJ who is raising THREE awesome boys who started the race on leg one in 3 chariots side by side.
My M and 2.0’s came to the finish line with cheering signs for Lucas. Randomly out of the crowd his mom comes up right beside my M and asks if we had seen the Chariot come through yet. My 2.0’s turned to show her the signs with Lucas’s name on them and asked if that is who she meant. Not only did they all get to see us arrive 10 minutes later, but Lucas’s sister was able to take the custom “Go Lucas” signs home with them.
T-Claps to Tolkien, Scabby and so many who came together to pull this off. Logistics weren’t easy but so many played a part to make this a huge success and the biggest SPEED FOR NEED day yet in terms of ridership and kids and families impacted. Not to mention the very fortunate honor it was for 20 PAX to push these kids.
Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L1tI3UtqRg
Certainly there are plenty of other perspectives to share on the day. Comment below!
-Alf
PAX –
This weekend is it. Charlotte Marathon Relay with SPEED FOR NEED. Tolkien has been putting in extra hours (is that even possible?) getting 20 riders and runners ready to go. The weather is clear but a bit chilly.
We encourage all co-running, co-pushing and cheering on the course for any and all legs. There will be four chariots and teams at various but similar paces. We have estimated the times at each EZ. A lot of effort and planning has gone into this, but like all Marathons, S#!+ happens on the course that may impact timing. As pushers we have committed first and foremost to the safety and enjoyment for the kids, sometimes that takes extra time.
ORIGINAL PREBLAST BELOW
On Saturday November 11, SPEED FOR NEED and F3 Nation will be pushing the most riders ever in one day! 20 WW2 veterans (95-102yrs old) will be honored on Veterans Day, along with kids and others without the ability to run themselves will be joining us to run the Charlotte Marathon Relay.
For those who don’t know, the marathon relay is a 5 leg relay race covering the entire 26.2 mile marathon course. The legs are ~4 to ~6 miles long and have fixed transition areas along the course.
SPEED FOR NEED will start off the race with a Rider in each of the 4 Chariots and at each transition will change runners and riders. The initial teams have been set and captained by Bratwurst, Scabby, Subway, and Alf. In some cases other relay teams or single runners will be running along side the SPEED FOR NEED racing chairs. All are welcome to sign up and join. We expect each of the chairs will be moving at different paces as well.
You don’t want to miss Charlotte’s biggest day of racing and the biggest day for SPEED FOR NEED participants. If you need some inspiration watch a few of the epic Youtube videos posted of past races and events:
https://www.youtube.com/user/mrkevinmyoung
How can you support?
Sign up and official event details here: http://runcharlotte.com
A huge thanks to JRR Tolkien for his tireless efforts and leadership to the cause #HIM.
-Alf