Battleship NC Half Marathon

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A little pricier than most races (about 75 bucks for the 10k a several months out), but my race bib got me a free entry into visiting the Battleship North Carolina (which is 14 bucks btw), and this goes for all participants, plus there was a ton of beer and waffles post race (plus bananas and waters galore).

The race expo was well organized, but they needed a larger space to accommodate sooo many runners and parking for the expo down at the river is a mess! There’s a garage to park in, but no real instructions on whether the garage is free or if parking in it can somehow be validated. It was a little more work doing bib pickup than what I’d prefer. Next time, I’m asking for day of race pickup as I come from 90 min away. The race director posted a youtube video the day before the racing giving some details and showing the course maps…this was great!

Race was about to start in less than 1 minute and the dang blow up start line thing starts rapidly deflating!!! I kid you not!!! So yeah, we had to wait another minute plus for them to tear it down and get it out of the way. It was hilarious actually!
The race has a narrow start as all the half marathoners and 10k runners are together…get as close to the front as you can if you’re a fast runner. You know the drill. All race distances start and finish in the exact same location, downtown near the river. There’s free street parking all over and a big garage right near by for parking as well. Many people seemed to be staying at local hotels there at the river and were just walking to the start line.

Course wise, there’s 3 bridges that have grates, which make running difficult for sure, so what they do is they put down these rubber mats to run on so you don’t have to run on the grates, well, the race has so many participants, for the first bridge at least (which is at mile 1.5 or so), good luck finding room to run on the rubber mat…there’s just way too many people. The first bridge I climbed and ran solely on the grate and it was definitely a little sketchy. Unfortunately, I saw one man bite it hard and he was badly scraped from it, and my wife said she saw another run take a really hard fall somewhere on the course. DEFINITELY be careful running the bridges as the rubber mats stick up all over the place and you can be tripped sooooooo easily and then along the side of Interstate 74 there was a ton of road debris that you really needed to pay attention to…felt a little like an obstacle course at times honestly, but not crazy bad.

Course photographers were seen at a couple locations and I remember seeing 2 water stops for the 10k. 10k and 1/2ers run the same course for about 4.5 miles before the 10kers split off and head for the finish line. The final 2-300 meters is uphill for everyone. Porto johns were seen at various locations if you’re having issues and there were plenty at the start/finish line party area.

Swag wise, the medal is decent and is actually metal. Longer races got larger medals; the way it should be! The freebie long sleeve this year was a 50/50 cotton poly blend that was grey, but the logo sucked. The front logo was way small and didn’t say Wilmington, NC or the date. The back logo was big, but again, no date. There’s no reason they couldn’t have put the date of the race on the shirt, but whatever…I’m sure they did it for Covid in case the race was cancelled they could just use the shirts another year. I don’t see myself ever wearing the free race shirt, even though it’s a long sleeve, which I love.

Highlight of the race for me was the unlimited Wicked Weed beer on tap (3 different brews!!!) and unlimited Waffle House waffles made hot right in front of you. The volunteers that worked these stations rocked it!!!! They busted their butts and it showed…I personally thanked as many of them as I could. I was really impressed by them as they were as efficient as they could possibly be. Lines for beer went super, super, super fast and I was doing 2 beers at a time.

The party area is cordoned off and it got a little crowded, but not too bad, there’s just no seating, NONE. Be aware, if you run the 10k and finish at say 8 am and win an award, they did all awards for all distances starting at 10 am and it was cold!!! 41 degrees at the race start at 7 am. Many people just sat down in the post race party area, which is a parking lot and waited. We went back to the hotel and showered, then returned for more beer and waffles and awards at 10 am.
The 2 person band was just ok…sorta Phish like folksy acoustic up tempo originals, and they sounded fine, but not my kinda music. I like a full band with drums and all that at a great post race party playing lots of hits, but that’s just me.

The bridges made the course as challenging, if not more challenging than the Cooper River Bridge Run 10k in Charleston if you’ve ever done that, so be aware of the climbing of the bridges and the descents as well. Even so, I pr’d at this race because I’ve been training hard for months and it was so cold at this year’s Battleship race. I ran this race about a minute and a half faster than I did Cooper River in Sept a couple months before this race.

We’re glad we did the race, learned some things like the bridge grating, where to park for the expo, and more, and after discussion we decided we’ll likely run it again next year, but we’ll sign up way earlier this year in hopes it will be cheaper.

Oh and as a master’s place finisher, just to note, I was given a 50 dollar gift card to Omega Sports (sponsor) and a pair of custom Battleship Half Marathon socks, definitely better than some of the crappy awards I’ve won the last couple years! Overall, I’d give this race an 8 out of 10, maybe even an 8.5. I actually like it quite a bit more than Cooper River Bridge 10k, which is all shuttles and massive crowds.