ING Georgia Half-Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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Atlanta, Georgia
United States
The ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon
Sunny
 		Total Time = 2h 51m 51s
Overall Rank = 7729/
Age Group = 30-34
Age Group Rank = 1715/
Pre-race routine:

Woke up at 4:45, threw on some clothes, and chugged some gatorade and a cup of coffee. I made a PB&J to eat in the car and we were out the door. I stayed at the sister's house of one of my TNT teamates, Mandy. Andrew and our assistant coach,Brad stayed there also. It was about 30 minutes outside of Atlanta, so we rode to a Marta station and jumped on. We met up with the other people from our Augusta team that were running, in the hotel lobby where they were staying. Then we just followed the people in the running clothes to the race start.
Event warmup:

Walking from the Marta to the hotel and then to the race start.also lots of IT band stretches while in line.
Run
  • 2h 51m 51s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 13m 07s  min/mile
Comments:

see above.
What would you do differently?:

Hmmm, I probably would not go to an Avett Brothers concert out of town 2 nights before the race and party like a rock star. I am pretty sure that my consumption of alchohol Friday night at the concert, lack of sleep for several days before hand, and general craziness leading up to the race day, had a lot to do with my slacker time. After downing way to many beers Friday evening, I had to wake early Saturday morning, pack, go to a baby shower and then drive to Atlanta and go straight to the expo. So lesson learned, no races the same weekend as a concert, large PTA fundraiser, and baby shower.
Post race
Warm down:

grabbed lots of food and water and started looking for my friends.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

see above.

Event comments:

I didn't like that there wasn't race corrals. It felt very disorganized just standing around not sure if we were in the right spot for the start. That kind of irked me. Also, the 5k chip mat was not in the right spot and the mile markers only said the marathon distances after a while and since they ran a partially different course it was very confusing for the half- marathoners. Every aid station I went to, only had water. I had 2 gels with me so I got some electolytes and sodium from that thank goodness. I heard some marathoners say they got poweraide, so I don't know if they ran out when I got to them or what but I don't think any one in our group every got poweraide. I was very impressed with the food post race. They had cookies, fresh fruit, muffins, gogurt,water,and pretzels. There was tons of sponsors handing stuff out at the expo and on the course also.(free souveniers for the kids). I loved the shirt we got and the medal was really cool too. I also thought it was cool that my name was printed on my race number. It was the first year so they should get a break for the few things that were off. I would do this race again for sure.




Last updated: 2007-03-26 12:00 AM
Running
02:51:51 | 13.1 miles | 13m 07s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/
Performance: Below average
average heart rate=148, Max HR=175. The mile markers were really strange in this race so I messed up recording my splits completely.
Course: I really liked this course.It was challenging at times, but I was never bored. It had some pretty hilly spots, but I powered up the hills. I had a harder time going downhill and on the flat portions of the course. My legs just weren't cooperating with me today. I felt fine, but my IT band started bothering me within the first few miles and the mucsles in my legs just burned every time I ran for longer than 5 minutes or so. Right after the first mile a few of the people we were running with needed to go to the porta potty, so we decided to go ahead and get it over with and stand in line. We lost about 10 minutes there. Several of the girls got really stressed about the lost time and we ran the second and third miles pretty fast (under 10 min per mile pace). I felt really good for those miles though, and the others were behind me during that part. I knew I was going to see my friend Liberty and her family, coming up on mile 4 so I was trying to get ahead of the others so it wouldn't matter if I stopped to talk for a few minutes. After my visit w/ my friend, I never really got my groove back. My knee was bothering me and my legs burned every few minutes. I found myself feeling really bummed, like I had let someone or myself down for not running faster or pushing harder. I had to remind myself that this was supposed to be fun and I knew going into this race that I wasn't going to PR and I would most likely have IT band issues. The little pep talk helped me brush it off and I finished the race with a smile. My husband Andrew, had planned on running a few miles with all of us, and then turn around and go back to the finish line to wait on us. However, he missed his turnaround spot and didn't want to get lost, so he ran the whole thing with me!
Keeping cool Average Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Bad
Mental exertion [1-5] 4
Physical exertion [1-5] 3
Good race? Ok
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 4