Run Steff Run: St. Louis Rock 'n' Roll Guest Recap

I had signed up for the Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis 5k and half marathon via Groupon, but then life got in the way and I just needed a weekend OFF!

I noticed that one of the runners I follow, Run Steff Run, was coming to St. Louis from Pittsburgh to run Rock 'n' Roll this year.  I asked her if I could share her race recap with you since I was skipping the races this year and because she would be able to offer a different perspective on the race since she wasn't a local.  Luckily, she agreed!

So for your reading pleasure, I would like to share the Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis 5k and half marathon race recaps from Run Steff Run's perspective:

Out and About in St. Louis

Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis 5k Recap

Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis Half Marathon Recap

Enjoy!

Medals4Mettle St. Louis Chapter Coordinator needed

You have seen me post once or twice about volunteering with Medals4Mettle, where we have visited local children's hospitals to distribute half and full marathon medals to hospitalized children.  Volunteering for the medal distributions has been a rewarding experience and the reactions from  hospital staff, parents, and the medal recipients is well worth the hour or two you take to volunteer.  Our St. Louis Coordinator is searching for her replacement so if you live in the St. Louis area, scroll down.  If you don't but are interesting in finding your closest chapter, click here.

Mary Ruth Casey is the current St. Louis Coordinator.  The amount of time she spends per month varies and is totally flexible.  She also currently has quite a few donated medals and ribbons for the new coordinator to start off with.  She has already developed relationships with several of our local hospitals, so she will have the contact information ready for her replacement.

Click here to see photos from Medals4Mettle on Facebook to learn more about what happens during the medal distributions.

If you are interested in the St. Louis Coordinator opening, contact Mary Ruth Casey at 636-524-5038 or tmrcasey@gmail.com for more details.  If I wasn't working so much and in the midst of planning a destination wedding, I would have snagged this great opportunity already!

Have you looked yourself up on Athlinks?

By now you have likely seen articles or ads on the internet telling you to "Google yourself" and see what happens, right.  Well have you been on www.athlinks.com yet and typed in your name to see what happens? Luckily, my name is fairly unique and I also caught onto this website fairly early on, so it was easier to sort through the results when I created my account.  But when you type in my step-dad's name without any filters for example, you get over 2,000 results!

A week or so after each race I go to the Athlinks website and type in my name to see if my new results show up in the unclaimed section.  When they do, I just log in and claim them to add them to my existing list of results.  This allows your results to be saved in one place so that you don't have to go to each race's website to see your results.  You can also quickly see your PR's in all distances.

Click here to learn more about how your race results appear on this website.  Create your account today and start following your running buddies too.

MO' Cowbell 5K Race Recap

You know my opinion on this race will be a bit biased because I am a MO' Bassador, but I am still going to be as thorough and honest as possible.  This is a great race not only for locals, but also out-of-towners because St. Charles is so close to the airport and Main Street is such a fun place to visit....and there are two casinos close by if you are feeling really lucky.

The Highlights:

•           Great pre-race communication via email and social media.  Emails were both informative and entertaining.  The pre-race emails were also broken into more bite-sized emails so that they weren't too overwhelming.
•       The expo was at St. Charles Community College, which was a bit of a distance from the actual race course, but it also allowed ample parking.  Back when the expo was at Lindenwood University, I remember parking being an issue.
•       The expo had a lot of interesting and unique vendors.  The Brooks trailer and the Alter G treadmill experience were outside in the parking lot.
•       You could sign up to become a MO' Bassador at the expo!
•       I worked the morning shift of packet pick-up on Saturday, and it seemed to go smoothly from my perspective.  Some times were busier than others but I didn't really have too many questions so the process must have been pretty straight forward to runners.
•            Road construction affected our race day drive, but we were alerted to that in pre-race communication as well.
•       Shirt - The shirts this year were made by a company called tasc.  The shirts were very soft and partially made from bamboo.

•      Super generous t-shirt exchange policy -  If when you pick up your shirt it doesn't fit the way you would like, bring it to the shirt exchange tent (near the stage) at Runners Village on race day (sorry not at the ExMO'). If we don't have the shirt size you need, we will order you a shirt and get it to your local Big River Store to pick up.  How many other races do that?  We love our runners!
•       On race day, you were encouraged to arrive at the start early due to the road construction and to get good parking.  We arrived around 6 a.m. for the 8 a.m. 5k and we parked right on Main Street by the shops.  At that time, there was still plenty of parking available.  I knew the gazebo had real restrooms underneath, so we parked pretty much adjacent to the gazebo.
•       I loved that this 5k was part of a longer day of races.  You never felt alone because you were always surrounded by other runners and the cheering at the finish was pretty amazing!  In fact my fiance and I came back around 1 p.m. and there were still tons of people in the runner's village and around the finish line.  
•       Did anyone notice the similarities between the Rio 2016 Olympic medals and the MO' Cowbell medals?  

•        The MO' Cowbell PR bell!  I didn't get to ring it though :(  At least I "won" a gold medal!

•       There was a coffee food truck this year!