Dear friends, sorry I've been MIA as of late! I gave an exam on Monday, so I spent most of the weekend writing it, and Monday through yesterday grading. Now I'm bracing myself for hate mail from my students about their grades...
Anyway, thanks Jen for posting that picture! Man, we were soaked, and that was not sweat! The rain was absolutely POURING around mile 7. After we finished running, we were soaked and freezing and didn't bother to cool down or stretch. OOPS! I was feeling a little stiff on Sunday morning, but I was better by Monday. The run went pretty well, other than the rain! I'm thinking I should be able to keep up the same pace, or possibly slightly faster, for the half marathon since it will be flatter and I'll have you girls to motivate me :) Anyway, here's the race results--Jennifer and I got 16th and 17th in our age group! :)
Which brings me to the title of the post. Our running coach's motivational e-mail of the week told us that for our last four long runs, we should take it easy for most of the run but push the pace on the last two miles. I've been picking up my pace on my own in the last mile of my long runs (the last mile of my 10-miler was 9:43!), but two miles will be a bit tougher. Just wanted to share that with y'all in case you want to try it as well.
All of you have posted such great ideas about Memphis, t-shirts, etc. I'm going to comment on those posts individually.
Oh, and my mom was so excited to finally be able to post a comment to the blog! She's been reading all along and finally got the comment function to work. So, hi Mom! :)
One month til Memphis!! Can't wait!! :-D
Showing posts with label race report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race report. Show all posts
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
I survived the Peachtree Road Race!
At one point, I wasn't sure we would even make it to the start, much less the finish! My friend Cara picked me up at 7:30 am yesterday, which should have allowed us plenty of time to get to the starting line by 8:56 am. Then our MARTA train got stuck behind a broken train...in a tunnel. I watched the minutes tick by on my watch: 8:00, 8:05, 8:10. We got back up and running, but a few stops later we all (and by this I mean hundreds of runners trying to get to the start) realized that we needed to transfer trains because the one we were on was going north, not northeast like we needed. We finally got to our stop at about 8:40 am and hauled our butts up the hill to the start line. We made it with just five minutes to spare. I had never been so annoyed at MARTA, but we made it!
I started off the race a little teary-eyed as the announcer recognized the participants who had served in the military. A few minutes into the race, a DJ was blasting "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. There was lots more music along the way, both live bands and DJs. There were also plenty of interesting costumes to keep me amused (see below)! I also chatted with a group of WVU alumni from Martinsburg for a few minutes.
The weather was surprisingly nice for July 4th in Atlanta. It was a little warmer than optimal for running (around 75 by the time I got out there), but the humidity was pretty low. I never felt like I was going to have heatstroke, and I was hydrated enough that I didn't need to stop at the water stations during the race.
After a first mile split of 11:23, I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere particularly fast. The crowd was amazingly thick, especially in the back where I was running. So I figured that if I could average 11-minute miles for the race (about 1:08), I would be satisfied. The hills were a little tough, but I finished in 1:08:04. It was a few minutes slower than last year's time, but a decent showing overall. Every runner got a timing chip this year, so you can look up my time on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website! I got 21,366th place...hey, that's in the top half! (EDIT: Turns out I got 21,365th place because the 4th place finisher was disqualified!)
So, I survived the Peachtree Road Race and added a third Peachtree t-shirt to my collection. See you next summer, Peachtree!
And hey...five months until the Memphis Half Marathon! Yipee!
Photos are courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (www.ajc.com).
I started off the race a little teary-eyed as the announcer recognized the participants who had served in the military. A few minutes into the race, a DJ was blasting "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. There was lots more music along the way, both live bands and DJs. There were also plenty of interesting costumes to keep me amused (see below)! I also chatted with a group of WVU alumni from Martinsburg for a few minutes.
The weather was surprisingly nice for July 4th in Atlanta. It was a little warmer than optimal for running (around 75 by the time I got out there), but the humidity was pretty low. I never felt like I was going to have heatstroke, and I was hydrated enough that I didn't need to stop at the water stations during the race.After a first mile split of 11:23, I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere particularly fast. The crowd was amazingly thick, especially in the back where I was running. So I figured that if I could average 11-minute miles for the race (about 1:08), I would be satisfied. The hills were a little tough, but I finished in 1:08:04. It was a few minutes slower than last year's time, but a decent showing overall. Every runner got a timing chip this year, so you can look up my time on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website! I got 21,366th place...hey, that's in the top half! (EDIT: Turns out I got 21,365th place because the 4th place finisher was disqualified!)
So, I survived the Peachtree Road Race and added a third Peachtree t-shirt to my collection. See you next summer, Peachtree!
And hey...five months until the Memphis Half Marathon! Yipee!
Photos are courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (www.ajc.com).
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