St. Jude Memphis Half-Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I was focused for this race. I had a stretch goal of 1:50, so I figured I would run the first half at 10k pace and see how I go from there. This worked out pretty good. Race started by corral, so I was about 3-4 minutes from the clock start. I thought I would stay with the 3:30 Marathon pace group and quickly passed them.
The first 2 miles were great once I weaved my way through the initial crowd. At this point I was running in the 7:40/mile range and feeling strong. The view running along the riverside in the morning sun was spectacular. I knew that I had a chance to do something special at this point. I took on one of the first uphills at about mile 2.5 feeling strong and ran down Beale street (and saw Elvis!). Right after the 3 mile split I saw our cousin's wife Erin cheering me on, which gave me a little boost as my hip was starting to revolt on me. Fortunalty the pain went away by mile 4
Every mile or so there was live music and cheer stations which was great- I wasn't even missing my ipod. the mile markers were well marked and I budgeted myself 8 minutes past each mile marker (I wanted to sandbag early in case I started falling apart later). At mile 5 I was around 39 minutes and felt real good, so I hammered it out to mile six- where I took a slow water/nutrition jog which I would have blasted through If I had known there was a 10k timing mat ahead. I still PR'ed on my 10k despite my leisurly pace there. I was here for 13.1 anyways. I was still mostly running sub 8/miles here and started to feel some fatigue by mile 7, then right when I needed a pick me up I saw my wife's aunt and uncle, high fived them, and got my ass moving again. I kept my pace strong all the way through mile 10, just taking it one mile at a time. I was very inspired by the crowd support and I was touched by the pictures of the kids that were saved at St Jude. There were a lot of those kids out there cheering us on too, so I thought whatever pain I had in my mind is nothing compared to what they are dealing with.
Mile 11 and 12 was a blur. I probably dropped my pace a bit because I was getting passed now and staring to hurt a little. At mile 12 I knew Was going to hit my PR, but had to hustle if I wanted to finish sub 1:45. The last .2 miles were downhill thankfully and I ran into The finish line with 10 seconds to spare. I thanked god for giving me this race. My 2007 season was over and I was thrilled with the finale.

Nothing other than lose a few pounds.

Walked up the stairs- which was not fun (we finished in the redbirds stadium) and grbbed a water and some chocolate milk. I went and cheered on the other runners while waiting for Jamie and Cory. They came in and looked great (can't wait to see the finish line shot). We got the hookup with Cory's wife (works for the big sponsor Juice Plus) and went up to the hospitality suite and had some grub and a couple of beers. Then, of course, later went for some memphis BBQ!


My spare tire and man boobs :)


Excellent race. Very organized, lots of great volunteers, lots of great entertainment on the course, great crowd support, great logistics, and a great cause it supports.
My only complaint was the post race area was a bit too crowded and chaotic.
I would recommend this race to anyone.