Without Limits Charleston launched in mid-October, but the growing team has already posted some impressive results during the Fall 2015 racing season! Here are some of the highlights from November and December:
Several WOL Charleston athletes competed on Thanksgiving Day. Most competed in the Turkey Day Run and Gobble Wobble in Downtown Charleston. In one of the largest 5k races in the nation (7,543 finishers), David Thomas (“DT”) came in 2nd overall with a 15:35 (PR!) and Catherine Hollister won the 45-49 AG handily with a 19:37 (PR!). Adam Rose cracked the 19-minute barrier to come in 5th AG and Jonathan Strader just missed a sub-20 clocking in his first race of the season. 8th-grader Cortez Gonzalez got some big time race experience and ran a 3+ minute PR to run a blazing 21:25 and place in the top 10% of his AG. Also in action were Anne Wulf and Kevin Mizell who both ran solid races while using the 5k to tune-up for the Kiawah Island Marathon in December.
At the Last Chance Trail 50k run on 12/5, Jon Barrows ran 5:02:32 (9:44 pace for 31+ trail miles) to place 8th overall. This was over an hour and a half improvement from his previous 50k!
We had athletes competing in both the half and full marathon at the Kiawah Island Marathon on 12/12. The weather was unseasonably warm and muggy, but our athletes fought through to post great results. In the half marathon Greg Barratt kicked off his quest for a BQ in earnest with a solid 1:44, new team member Harry Gregorie ran 1:46 to place 5th in the 60-64 AG, and Kevin met a long-term goal by completing his first half marathon.
In the full marathon, Anne was running her first marathon, but executed like a pro with perfectly even half splits of 2:05:45/2:05:56 to run a 4:11 in warm conditions. Jon doubled back from the previous weekend’s trail 50k to clock 4:26 in his first road marathon and get some valuable mental callousing for his upcoming 24-hour trail race in February.
While their teammates competed over longer distances on Kiawah, DT and Cortez excelled at the 5k distance at the Reindeer Run downtown. DT planned his kick to perfection to come home with the overall victory with a 15:37 and, despite a fall in the opening 100 meters of the race, Cortez kept calm and was able to equal his PR of 21:25 from the Turkey Day run and place 4th in his AG.
The last race of the year for our team was the Nexton Cocoa Cup 5k presented by Fleet Feet Sports. Cortez ran another PR with a 20:56 to place 2nd in his age group. Greg placed 3rd in his age group with a 21:03, about 10 seconds off of his lifetime PR and a huge seasonal best.
As 2015 comes to a close, we are excited to see what 2016 brings for our growing team! WOL Charleston will be training for races ranging from the mile to the marathon on the roads, to the 1600/mile and 3200/2-mile on the track, to ultra trail runs of up to 24 hours.