On my 44th birthday, I ran my 35th half marathon, the Riley’s Rumble Half Marathon in Germantown, Maryland. This was easily one of the hardest half marathons I have ever run. It is probably tied with the Asheville Half Marathon, which I ran a decade ago, as the hilliest and most difficult half I’ve done.
But I expected that when I signed up, and had zero time goals in mind. I had heard from multiple other runners that the course was nothing but hills, and the RunSignUp listing said the same thing, but of course I wondered if it was truly that hard. I do live and train in a relatively hilly area, after all. But I can assure you that yes, it lived up to its reputation!
The main reason I wanted to run this race is because it was on my birthday! I ran the Tracksmith Twilight 5000 last year on my birthday, but I had never run a half on my birthday. If memory serves, I was actually signed up for this race in 2020, and that year it was either on or near my 40th birthday…. But obviously we know what happened in 2020, and I never ran the race.
Until this year!
My last half marathon was in March and it was a massive PR. I broke 90 minutes for the first time, and again, I had no expectations of being anywhere close to that time at Riley’s. One, because of the course, and two, because I am currently not in that kind of shape. I have been slowly increasing my mileage these last few weeks as I prepare to start training for the Ocean City Marathon, but I have done pretty much no speedwork in months. I thought I’d be lucky to be within 10 minutes of my PR.
Turns out I was 14 minutes off, finishing in 1:43:00. It was my slowest half in years!
One thing that was in my favor—the weather was decent, at least at the beginning of the race. This summer has been the hottest and most humid summer I can remember running through in years, possibly ever, but the morning of the race was pretty cool. It was about 64 degrees when we got to the race venue, and I felt chilly in my sports bra and shorts.
We started right at 7:30 and there was a lot of downhill in the first few miles, which I knew was going to come back to bite me at the end! (Instagram friend Libby, a member of the Montgomery County Road Runners Competitive Racing Team, had warned me of this!) This part of the race, and actually a lot of the race, was pretty well shaded, too. That was nice. I was flying down the hills and running well under 7:30 per mile, and honestly feeling pretty great through the first half of the race. I knew Libby was going to be at the mile 6 water stop, right where the runners turn around to head back, so seeing her was a nice pick me up. She later said I looked strong, and I did feel pretty strong there.
After the turnaround, you get to run downhill again, then some more rolling hills, before you make a right around mile 7/7.5 and head through a stretch of road that is even more rolling hills and not at all shaded. By that point, the sun was out and it was getting hot, but the scenery was beautiful—lots of farmland. We were on that road for probably a mile and a half, then turned around again to head up a steep little hill. Right before that turnaround, there was a stop where volunteers were handing out popsicles, which is something this race is known for. They did look appealing, but I never know how my stomach is going to react when pushing hard in races, so I declined a popsicle. ( did take a Maurten gel halfway through the race.)
I would say this is where the race started to get really hard. Once I hit mile 10, I knew I only had a 5K left to go, but also that it was going to be mostly uphill. I pretty much stopped looking at my splits at this point, but hey, positive splits for positive people, right? The long steep uphill at mile 11 basically destroyed me and I walked up part of it (as quickly as I could.) Mile 12 wasn’t much better, but once I got through that I was like, OK, one more mile. I saw my husband waiting for me right at the last little turn toward the finish. He was very encouraging and said, “I thought you would have been done by now!” Hahahaha, thanks! The last three quarters of a mile of the race felt like they took forever, and when I crossed the finish line I immediately went off to the side and sat down in the grass, happy to be done!
There were no medals or awards, because as the race organizers, the Montgomery County Road Runners, said on the race website, you don’t need anything to remember your Riley’s Rumble experience. That was the truth! According to the results, though, I finished 7th female and was 5th in my age group. Masters Female runners had a great day!
Overall, I’d say I really enjoyed my Riley’s Rumble experience, challenging as it was! Because you didn’t get medals or awards, or even a T-shirt, the race was only $32, and free for members of the Montgomery County Road Runners. I live in Anne Arundel County and am not a member, but $32 is pretty damn cheap for a half.
It was a great way to kick off 44!
Running for Unicorns 