ING Georgia Marathon - RunMarathon

My goals were to run about 10 min miles and to run. It was hard in the first few miles to keep the pace down since everyone was flying by me. I settled in and enjoyed the sites. I stopped at Agnes Scott and got a nice coed to slather vaseline on my nipples and enjoyed the crowd and noise they generated. As I ran through downtown Decatur it hit me that I was a long way from ATL. I remembered what my friend Joe said "respect the distance. One bad decision will ruin your race." I'm glad he had me focused on slow and steady. At about 15 miles my first pain began and I chuckled I only have eleven to go! It was my right foot, but it didn't get any worse. I ran strong through Druid Hills, but saw a number of the people who passed me earlier looking rough. I started to feel it about mile 22. The legs started to ache and I was struggling to keep the pace in the 10's. I was running with another guy and he was struggling like me and we were trying to pick each other up. And then I saw Krissy! She is a Roswell Firefighter and has done a few HIM's. She was great. She told us all the right things and somehow we stuck with her and ran faster. We were running around 9 min miles and at about 25 miles I gave out. My running mate hung with her and later said without her he wouldn't have set a new PR. Triathletes are the best. They tell you to suck it up and run. Anyway I suffered to around mile 26 where my wife, Joe, and Jerry were waiting to cheer me on. I made it from 25 to 26 by telling myself they had been standing out in the cold to boost me up and I needed to get there. They were just what I needed. I coasted in at 4:27 and was happy to complete my first marathon. Next one will be flat.

Train more. I decided to switch from the half to the whole about 2 months out. I knew I could finish with my training plan, but I never was able to get the weekly mileage up high enough. I felt like increasing my long runs and my weekly mileage at a quick rate was begging for an injury. I concentrated on getting the long runs in but never upped the mid week runs (about 12 miles a week plus the long run).

Hobbled. Everything started to lock down, but I had my wife and two friends to help me to the car. Post race nutrition was beer and nachos at Taco Mac. Perfect!


Training and not knowing what to expect. It's hard to know what you can do until you get to the last few miles.


It's nice to have a big marathon in Atlanta. The organisation was much better then last year, but they still need to work on the start. It was impossible to figure out where the bag drop was or your starting coral. Some signs and a map of the park would fix this. btw, I can't beleive only 2142 people ran the marathon. Hopefully people will give them another chance since they fixed the inaugural races issues.