2009 ING Georgia Marathon

I finished in 4:25. My hopeful, non-stated goal was to finish under 4:30; that isn’t fast, but I had no idea what to expect and wanted to be happy just finishing no matter what. I am happy with the time and ready to improve it! The run went a lot better than I had expected. Last November when I did the Atlanta Half Marathon, which shared the second half of the course (or something like that) with the marathon route, I remember thinking that if I were seeing those mile markers, I would be so depressed knowing I had so much further to go (“I’m only on 15 out of 26?”). I was surprised to never really think about that during the race and stay focused on being satisfied with how far I had made it.

It started out cold and stayed cold the whole race. I think it lingered in the mid 40s, low 50s. I expected it to be warmer and had an oddly sized clearance shirt (see pic above) ready to ditch when I heated up, which never happened. The term “blustery” comes to mind. I didn’t take it off until about half a mile before the finish line when I asked one of the race volunteers to hold my headphones so I could pull it off and avoid it in the finish line photo. I know, valuble seconds so wasted. Haha.

The marathon route split from the half marathon at mile 7. After that point, it was much less energetic and fewer people along the course (and less populated areas, I guess). This was nice because dodging people walking everywhere in the first few miles was annoying as heck. Etiquette was not really great at the beginning of the race; if you are walking on the first mile, downhill, you probably should have started further back (possibly in your assigned corral, hmm?) so everyone else doesn’t have to dodge you and your quadruplet friends who are walking next to you on the left, right, and center. Just saying.

I stayed around the 4:15 pace group until about mile 18 or 19, at which point climbing those long hills was catching up to me. I felt like I had a lot of energy, or at least adequate energy, until about mile 22 and 10th Street. My legs started giving me the uh-uh at that point. Maybe the real problem was that I stopped and stretched for a minute; once I stop, I am real lazy bones about getting it going again. Brian was supposed to meet me at mile 21 on Ponce and I had been looking forward to that, but he wasn’t able to get there so it was kind of disappointing to have to trot through looking at all the people thinking I was missing him. He had my last gel (I took one pre-race, mile 6, 11, 16), so I missed that and I’m not sure if that would have helped or not. I’m pretty sure my legs were going to be pretty toasted regardless. The last few miles were hard knowing that I had such a short distance to go and my legs not wanting to go up 10th, Tech, etc, so I started doing some run/walk. I was definitely ahead of the time I thought I would be at, so that was nice and encouraging (and part of why B wasn’t at 21, because I was ahead of my guesstimate), but it also started the whole, how well could I finish if I could just push myself a little bit more now? The answer was, you get what you get!

The last mile was really, really long. Boring and long. It came with its own source of irritation as the ING had this thing where kids did a running program and then ran their last mile on the last mile of the course. This apparently was happening or had happened around the time I was coming in, because there were mad kids and parents just walking along the course, four or five wide and in my way. I was like, dang, y’all, I just ran 26 miles, so if you could give me the inside line on that corner to the downhill finish, I would appreciate it! I know you are busy walking, texting on your cell phone and all, but it would be nice. It made it feel like the race was just suddenly over before reaching the finish line and totally sucked. FYI, ING.

I really had the best time, despite my inclination to talk about the stuff that annoys me. The course was pretty hard for me (so many hills later in the game) and like I said, I really did not prepare as much as I could have long-run wise. There was usually enough to look at to be distracting and kill some time, except around miles 16-17ish which were in some crazy boring area. I felt like I fell into some dead zone there for a while because I have no idea where that was or how long I was there. I remember getting there because the mile marker had fallen down and some guy pointed it out. And then I just remember really big houses and tall trees and a steady incline (on the elevation chart here). I feel like now I can be motivated to do longer runs (when I have time, which is not right now) and pick up the pace a little and try for a faster time. Part of being worried about doing this race was knowing that I didn’t have enough time between work and school to really put in the hours-long runs I should have and I really didn’t because I have to prioritize school and work, obviously. But I have my sights set on a next race, probably not until the fall. In the meantime, I am planning to do the Lake Hartwell Dam Run 10k (I am a sucker for a funny name) on May 2nd and then the Peachtree Road Race on July 4. While I was looking up those links, I just saw the Terrapin Beer 5k plus one more and now I want to do that! It’s at 4pm and ends at the brewery, which sounds dangerous or fun. I’m not sure which.

Here’s a cool link to a (slightly blurry) video of the course from last year. It shows some of the course highlights, like the king center, driving miss daisy house (located in boringtown above), mlk’s birthplace, agnes scott college, carter center, ga tech – a lowlight, depending who you are etc. In closing, I did it! Yeah!