Running The Race

I set a PR yesterday in Huntsville, 4:43:42. I had hoped for much better but I am glad with that, but isn’t that always the case.

My wife and I drove down to Huntsville Friday afternoon. We stayed at the Embassy Suites. It was across the street from the starting line. It was a really nice hotel and it was very handy to be able to walk to the starting line.

Saturday was a beautiful December morning, sunny, clear, not a cloud in the sky, little to no wind and 17 degrees! The forecast called for the temperature to rise to 50 by noon so the big decision was what to wear. I end up with four layers, an underarmor-type base layer, a thicker weight technical top that has a half zipper, a short sleeve technical shirt I had gotten at race that I never wear and a standard sweatshirt. My plan was to shed the top two layers as I warmed up. That worked well.

I was really surprised how warm I was at the start. It really helped with no wind. When the gun went off we started forward. Some how I missed the button on my watch. With gloves, no glasses and arthitic hands, that is always a possibility. I usually keep my Garmin on the heart rate screen so I was getting a reading. It was not until about mile 1 when I discovered the problem. So my splits were off.

The first 2 miles or so loop through downtown and an historic section. with beautiful old homes. At one house was a lady on the front porch cheering us on with the Hallelujah Chorus booming out.

Most of the course is through residential neighborhoods and there where course monitors at each turn. They also did a great job at traffic control.

The first half I did well. Almost too well, my time at the half was 2:03:07. I was pleased but knew I still had a long way to go. About mile 19, I started getting a side stitch but kept pushing. By mile 22, I was really slowing down. It felt like from mile 16 on it was all up hill! Not big hills but still up hill.

The finish is really cool. They announce your name, hometown and time as you cross the finish line. Then you are greeting by a volunteer who personally helps you down the chute to have your chip removed and receive your finishers metal and cap. By that time Gayle had caught up with us and she took over. We went inside the race headquarters hotel (Holiday Inn) for the post race snack.

Since we had a 2 pm late check out from the hotel, we didn’t linger but headed back across the street. Took an ice bath, showered and then headed back to Nashville. Gayle drove back. I was glad I didn’t have to.

The Rocket City Marathon is a great race. For the price it is super. The field is small, with only around a 1,000 but they do a super job.

Lessons learned….

• Have a plan. I had thought about what pace I wanted to run but hadn’t settled on any thing. I had told myself I would just go run. I need to have a plan. I ran the first half too fast. Got to talking with some folks, felt good and kept up their pace. I should know better and I paid for it in the end.
• It is really nice to make new friends That really helps the miles pass. Just be careful about the pace.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Daily Run. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.