Race Report: Cooper River Bridge Run (2014)

The Cooper River Bridge Run is one of the most well-known races in the United States, and bills itself as "the best organized and best conducted race in the world."  I've heard about this run for quite some time, and became interested in running it when a friend of mine mentioned that he's been going down with a group of guys and their families for the past several years.


The 37th annual run was a weekend event, with the expo and fun runs held Friday, then the 10K main event on Saturday morning.

Fun Run Celebrities!

The Fun Run was entertaining, and the adults were able to run with their children.  All of the kids seemed well behaved, and only one or two adults got out of hand. :)

Cooper River Bridge Run is so named because you literally run over a bridge.  Not just any bridge, this is the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge that spans the Cooper river and connects the towns of Mount Pleasant and Charleston, both in South Carolina. This point-to-point race starts in Mount Pleasant, goes over the bridge, and finishes in downtown Charleston.

The morning of the race we left North Charleston and drove to Mount Pleasant.  It was nice to be with people that had done this before, as we found a parking spot quickly and walked the mile or so to the starting line.  Over 30,000 of my closest friends were going to be running this one.  The rows of portable bathrooms, lines of shuttle buses, and hundreds of people walking to the starting line were all clues that this was a very big event.

This wasn't the only row :)

The race is a wave start.  Talking with some folks that have been doing this one for years, apparently the start has been tweaked from time to time, but because of the sheer number of people, the wave start seems to work best.

During registration, runners are asked about their expected finishing time.  Then when each runner receives his or her bib (mine came in the mail, could also be picked up at the expo the day before), The letter before the number is the corral in which that runner starts.  Mine was Corral A, which was behind the wheelchair racers, followed by the elite runners, then the sub 40 minute folks, and finally those runners that registered with a 45 minute or under time.

Ready to run.

I waited in the corral for a few minutes, and had an opportunity to appreciate just how well organized this event really was.  Volunteers at every corral, large open arc to run under, local musical talent playing through speakers hung on cranes near the start, and a good half mile (please keep in mind I have no real sense of distance here) of a sea of humanity.  A few interesting costumes were out in fashion, and it was a lot of fun to people watch.

The wheelchair racers are amazingly fast - I think faster than the elites.  Speaking of the elites, the top ten winners were all from Ethiopia or Kenya, save one Moroccan.  And in eleventh place was Michael Banks from exotic Charleston, SC.  Always terrific to have a local runner in the mix, especially for a race of this caliber.  The top 13 runners ran at under a 5 minute / mile pace, which is absolutely amazing.  The top 100 runners were under a 6 minute / mile pace.

We began on relatively flat ground on wide roads.  Every few thousand feet a new band or solo act was performing as the runners ran by.  It was a lot of fun to be surrounded by the music and the fun.  After a while we started up the on ramp to the Ravenel Bridge.

The interesting thing about running on a bridge is that it's easy to misconstrue distance and scale. This one seems massive when you're on it, with a little over 4,000 meters of the run on this bridge.  Because of the scale, I kept thinking I was at the end of the uphill portion.  If you use the picture below as a guide, we ran from right to left.

http://tinyurl.com/p66jtzj

Passing under the diamond-shaped towers is really incredible, and it's hard not to have an appreciation for the engineering, design, and large-scale thinking it takes to create something like this.  As I passed under the first one, for some reason I thought I was near the top of the incline and getting ready to start downhill after that.  Again, we're running right to left in the picture above.

For a while it seemed the incline would never end!  The crest was always a little further away from wherever I was.  Along the way, several runners were pulling up to walk a bit - I wonder if they were having the same experience.  As I passed under the second tower, I finally started getting some relief.

Coming off the bridge, we turned left and started to make our way into the city.  Doughnuts were an available treat for those interested - I ran on by but they smelled delicious!  The course went by the river for a short time, then into the downtown area where some friendly high fives were waiting for me.

I walked for about 20 seconds, then picked up the pace again to finish the race.  It was nice to run under the arc and finish the day, and the post-race gathering was stocked with local watermelon, barbecue, and Johnsonville brats from the Big Taste Grill.

I ran a good race, and overall it was a very nice experience.  The group was terrific, the family had a good time, and I'm going to sign up for next year as soon as registration is open.  If you're in the region, I highly recommend running the Cooper River Bridge.

===  RACE DAY  ===
Race:  Cooper River Bridge Run
Location:  Charleston, SC
Shoe:  Avia Austin
Date:  4/5/2014
Distance:  10K
Time:  49:44
Pace:  8:00/mile
Overall:  1877/31809 (5.9%)
Gender:  1522/13004 (11.7%)
Group:  178/1479 (12.0%)

===  LINKS  ===
Website:  BridgeRun.com
Registration:  Active.com
Results:  Xacte.com