Run the Reagan race report.

First off I have to thank everyone who let it close off the Ronald Reagan, so, Thank you!
The race course is the Ronald Reagan Parkway a scenic 6.2 mile thoroughfare named after the late Mr. Ronald Reagan. Mister Pres must have liked hills, because this bad boy is chocked full of them and when I stay hills I mean long steady hills, the kind that kick your butt. That said, I had a wonderful time, I like hills, I like the way they test me, my mussel my mind.
The weather was great, I would say somewhere in the mid forties, and clear a bell. I start off with a sleeveless tech shirt under a long sleeve tech shirt and shorts, by mile 1; I peeled of my long sleeve and was feeling fine. I had my tunes going; a pretty eclectic mix, AD/DC, Jack Johnson, Dave Mathews, Blues Traveler and they kept me going. Normally I love to chat it up and have a good time running, but I purposely wore my tunes because I wanted to focus on running. I wasn’t really trained up to run a 10k fast, I am really in a base building stage and I ran this as a training run, plus I am a real slow runner or should I say jogger. The scenery is nothing to talk about it’s mostly trees and bushes, but the beauty I found was in the hills. The hills were up and down like all hills, but these swayed up high to the left and up to the right and when you thought you could see the top more of the hill would reveal itself as you got closer. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention when I ran down a long grade, my feet flying behind me, my stride lengthening, my heart pumping hard, I was in a happy place, it’s a memory that I will have with me for the rest of my life. I hit the turnaround point and started up that wonderful hill, soon I snapped out of my trance and it was time to pay the gravity bill. I had been running at a steady pace looking to run negative splits, because of the hills my split times were all over the place, but on this long uphill I was gaining on my peers. I got to pass a lot of runner, many they went out too fast and they were paying the price. So from the turn around you head up a ¾ mile long grade and many of the back of packers like me we were slowing once at the top it was downhill for a half mile and then backup another ¾ mile hill and over the Web Gin House exit. This was the last big hill, and by now the carnage was great. I got to the top and had to take a 30 second walk break, I wanted to run the hill and I knew I could but I might have to walk off some once I crested. Once I got to the top of the last rise it was about a half mile or so to the finish. I picked off a few rabbits I had scoped miles back and it felt pretty good to cross the line.

I finished up and ran back up the course to cheer my fellow back of the pack runners.

I grabbed a water, headed home, cleaned up and took the family out to lunch.

The race organizers put on a great post race family festival where they have lots of blowup moonwalks and local restaurants are giving out samples and you can meet many of fellow runners and enjoy the day.

That’s my perfect day (run, family, steak).

I recommend the race; the hills weren’t really that bad and it was a lot of fun to run on a completely closed of highway.
The Run the Reagan offers a Half-Marathon, 10k, 5k and a 1 mile run run.


Run log,

-Brian