Rock N' Roll Providence
Finishers: 3,607
August 18, 2012
I had been feeling a little under the weather and fighting a sore throat but nothing super horrible -- until I woke up Saturday morning. I am very used to having sore throats and strep and just issues because of my abnormal large tonsils (RIP 12/20/12).
So when I woke up in NYC, I realized I had zero voice. None at all! Sounds like the perfect health condition to run a race. So I packed up my things at the hotel and head over to Penn Station to catch my train up to Providence. I had never taken the train out of Penn Station and I had no clue how it all worked with waiting to see which track is yours etc. I got there a little late and got very stressed and ended up canceling my ticket and booking a later trip because I had no voice to ask anyone for help.
As always, I had a few people come up to ask me questions at the train station. To whom, I had to make a motion of "can't talk" which probably looked like I was choking. Once I finally got settled on the later trainI again had a friend fellow sitting next to me who despite my notions to explain I had no voice, still continued to ask me detailed questions that required more than just a nod. So I pretended to fall asleep with my headphones on.
The ride was about 3 hours where you travel all through Connecticut before reaching Rhode Island. Providence was the last stop before Boston so the train was still fairly full. My hotel was in walking distance from the train station so off I trotted down the street with my huge suitcase. When I checked into the hotel, I got upgraded to an awesome corner room suite with a bathroom fit for a dance party and 2 walls of windows. Too bad I wasn't going to be there longer.
The convention center was also walking distance from the hotel so once I got settled, I made my way down the street to pick up my shirt and bib and wander the booths a little. Downtown Providence is actually really cool. I wandered up to the giant mall in the afternoon and got take out from one of the chain Italian restaurants and then went and chilled in my awesome room for the rest of the night. I knew I needed to get better which meant rest.
One thing I did get to see which is fairly rare is the WaterFire along the Providence River which goes right through downtown Providence. It is a bunch of gas braziers in the water they only turn on for special occasions. They turned them on the night before the race which I was able to see from my window.
August 19, 2012
For August, it was a surprisingly cool morning. I had not run at all because of being sick so I did a few striders just to make sure I could breathe and decided I would survive - maybe. Once the race kicked off, I decided I would be just fine.
The first few miles headed out of town into the historic and pleasant East Side where we passed Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. You could tell all of the houses were super old and I could only imagine what type of history I was running through. Once we went up and down a few old school blocks we zipped down along the Providence harbor passing scenic Seekonk River heading north past Blackstone Park and including Blackstone Boulevard.
The race wound along the north side of the Swan Point area before returning to the downtown and more architectural and historic gems. It was a gorgeous course with a perfect mix of nature and history. Once we got back into the downtown area, it felt like we were on a running freeway because we did a bunch of crossing back and forth with different sections of the race. I never mind crossing paths with the faster/slower runners because it give something to look at and cheer for.
Towards this part of the race, I was still feeling good and started to entertain myself with all of the cameras along the course. Once we finally started heading back towards the capitol, we ran along the Providence River once more before, as always, heading uphill towards the finish. Always an uphill.
I finished strong and then used all of my audible words to ask a stranger to take a race pic for me. I then literally ran back to the hotel to change and get a flight back to Atlanta for a Deloitte event. Another wonderfully executed Rock N Roll race!
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| OFFICIAL RACE PIC - 9 states down, 41 to go! #DREAMBIG |
9 states down, 41 more to go!
#DREAMBIG
