ING Georgia Half-Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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Atlanta, Georgia
United States
The ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon
43F / 6C
Overcast
 		Total Time = 1h 59m 30s
Overall Rank = /
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 0/
Pre-race routine:

My wife and I stayed in a hotel in Buckhead near the subway/MARTA line. In response to complaints from last year's inaugral event, MARTA was supposed to add additional trains to carry runners to the start. In fact, the race organizers really pushed taking MARTA. I arrived at the Buckhead MARTA station at 5:50 and got a train just after 6:00, which was packed given the lack of trains running. I got to the start on-time, but my wife waited until 8:00 to head down to see the finish and waited nearly 40 minutes.
Event warmup:

Upon arrival at the start, my warmup consisted of running around the park and start area trying to find the bag drop. All of the event signs were around eye level and hard to see. I found the drop area finally just as the race was getting underway and ended up starting in a random corral.
Run
  • 1h 59m 30s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 09m 07s  min/mile
Comments:

I crashed my bike the weekend before and was still a bit bruised and scrapd up, so I ended up switching from the full to the half the day before at the expo. My run was OK, but I really just showed up to run without much of a race plan. I was underdressed for the cold air and wind and had a hard time keeping a positive attitude for this race.
What would you do differently?:

Dress appropriately.
Post race
Warm down:

Stopped and tried to get warm.

Event comments:

Disclaimer: I did not have a great day at this race, but I have tried to be objective with my comments. My wife, who did not run and was a spectator, shared my sentiments about this race not being very well run and fairly unorganized.

This was the second year of this race and while some of the problems from last year seemed to have been corrected (water and gatorade stations), there was still a good deal of disorganization. The start was chaotic and not effectively sign-posted. The race organizers and/or MARTA did not coordinate and/or respond to the capacity demands. The bag check pick-up was grossly understaffed resulting in very long lines, which given the 40 degree temprature was not a good thing - I waited around 20 minutes to get my bag. In comparison to other similarly priced and numbered races, i.e. $80-100 entry fee and 10k plus runners, this fell well short of my expectations. I will wait a month and run the Country Music Marathon in Nashville next year rather than run this one again.




Last updated: 2008-04-02 12:00 AM
Running
01:59:30 | 13.1 miles | 09m 07s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/
Performance: Below average
Course: Undulating, rolling hills. Nothing to steep, but long enough to get your attention, especially near miles 9-11.
Keeping cool Average Drinking Too much
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? No
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Bad
Race evaluation [1-5] 2