My 5th and final Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis

Here's the deal.  I have been over the Rock 'n' Roll race craze for a while now.  I have run Rock 'n' Roll in San Antonio once, DC once, and St. Louis five times now.  At least for St. Louis, the number of half marathon finishers keeps decreasing.  In 2011 there were over 17,000 finishers.  In 2015 there were just over 8,000 even after they offered a Living Social deal.  I had no intention of running the Rock 'n' Roll half in 2014 but then they offered such a great discount that I couldn't refuse.  Then early this year I received an email stating that I would get a commemorative bib and bottle opener key chain if I ran it one more year to make it five in a row.

And so....I ran it one more year and now post-race I can honestly say that this was my last year running the Rock 'n' Roll in St. Louis.  I need to mix it up and run other Missouri races and start back on my quest to run a half in all 50 states.  I also wasn't impressed with the swag we got this year.  It was just ho-hum.  Remember when we used to get the black bags stamped with the Rock 'n' Roll logo for that particular city?  Well those days are over apparently over!

Sweet Swag

Boring Swag

The shirts were cute this year though.

But the commemorative 5-year bib and key chain took stops at three different booths before I was finally directed to the correct staff.  Even during the race, several runners asked where I got my 5 Years Running bib because they never found where to pick it up at the expo.

Despite the ups and downs mentioned above, I did have fun during the race.  I ran with a co-worker of mine who was in the Fleet Feet training group with me, just a different pace group.  I had trained with the 8:1 group (8 minutes running: 1 walking) but I ended up running with her pace group which was 5:1.  The hills in St. Louis never go away, but somehow the time flew (even if my pace didn't:) because I always had someone to talk to.  So in 2016, I will have to find different late-October half marathons to try. On to new routes and roads!  I only have one more half marathon left in 2015, then a few short races to close out the year.  I can't believe it is almost November....

Happy training!