March 20, 2016: The Publix Georgia Half Marathon

2015 Course Time: 2:05:36

Half-Marathon PR: 1:59:48 (December 2015)

Since breaking the 2-hour barrier in December, I've gone half-marathon crazy, signing up for five 2016 races: Thrill in the Hills in February, today's race, the Hotlanta Half in June, the Buford Highway Half in October, and the Jeff Galloway 13.1 in December. 

Spring in my neighborhood

To celebrate the spring equinox, Atlanta hosted the Publix Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon this morning.  We have had a beautiful early spring, with the trees coming into bud, albeit with corresponding rises in pollen levels.  It was a wonderful morning for running, about 45 deg at the start with clear skies, slightly marred only by a bit of wind.  We had a great turnout from the Tucker Running Club, at least 11 half-marathon runners and 4 marathon runners. 

Left-to-right: Kalpana Patel, Corey Tanner, Crystal Tanner, Malisa Anderson-Strait, Paula Klingman-Palk, Robin Valentine Mitchell, Priscilla Bray Hammond, your author, Kathie Walker, Curt Walker, Brian Minor, and Beverly Ford

Bonnie and I on the 5:15 am train from Doraville Station

Arriving in wave C and finding the 2:00 pace team

With Brian Minor about 1 minute before we began.
Friends at the start, competitors for the next 13.1 miles!

At this point, I'm always trying for a 2-hour half-marathon.  For this course I knew that it would be much more challenging than the Galloway.  Nonetheless I was confident that I could improve on last year's time, as the 2015 race was only my second half-marathon and I had run it fairly conservatively.  I was assigned to corral C, which was also the starting point for the 2:00 half and 4:00 full marathon pace leaders.  However the race was also well-attended, over 7000 finishers in the two races, and the start was quite crowded.  I had trouble keeping up with the pace leaders, not so much because of the speed, but constantly dodging around other runners.  However, I knocked out the first two miles at 9:23 for each mile, which was approximately the pace that I had hoped to begin with.  In fact, the race route never really thinned out that much, so that I had to run fairly carefully from start to finish to avoid running over anyone.  I had originally planned to run intervals of 4:30 with walk breaks of 30 seconds, also walking through each water station, but it was so crowded in many areas that I felt that it would be unwise to slow down to a walk in most other sections of the route other than the water stations.  I was concerned about maintaining the pace for 13 miles without taking the walk breaks that I had rehearsed.  But my legs felt fairly good throughout the race.  I actually became concerned that I might not make up the time lost in walk breaks, so other than the hydration stations, I only took a couple of additional walk breaks, one when I was having trouble opening a tube of Shot Bloks in the fifth mile, and a second in the eleventh mile when I was struggling up a hill on the Georgia Tech campus on North Avenue. 

Turning the corner onto Auburn Avenue in front of the King Center, in the fourth mile

Near the mile 1 marker, on Piedmont Road.  I didn't know Bonnie was there!

Bonnie managed to take photos around mile 1 (Piedmont Road and Auburn Avenue) and again in the middle of the fourth mile near the Martin Luther King Historic Site.  There weren't really any bands or music along the way other than a few residents who set out speakers outside of their homes (or perhaps opened their windows), but I enjoyed the drummer on Park Avenue in the ninth mile, and really appreciated the Phiddippides Cheering Group at the mile 9 marker as we crossed the historic Park Avenue bridge into Piedmont Park, which is my favorite part of this route.  That might be because the last 4.1 miles of the race will be 180 feet uphill!  My spirits were also raised by the decorations on the Georgia Tech campus in mile 12, an arch across the street decorated with yellow and black balloons along with a large Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket balloon to greet us before we left campus. 

The hills after mile 9 are brutal!

Overall I generally executed most of my goals for this race, including running the first ten miles about 4 minutes faster than last year.  At the ten-mile mark, I realized that a 2-hour half-marathon time might be achieved if I ran a 9-minute pace for the rest of the way.  Unfortunately I struggled a bit more than I remembered from last year in miles 11, 12, and 13.  For instance, when I finished mile 11, I calculated that I needed to run two 8-minute miles to nail a 2-hour finish, but I didn't have that kind of 5K speed in my legs that far into the race.  When I reached the mile 12 marker after turning onto Marietta Street, I resolved to put on a kick and managed an 8:20 pace for about a quarter mile, but then I began slowly down despite my brain shouting GO! GO! GO!  In that stretch, my Peachtree-in-Training coach and Tucker Running Club teammate Kathie Walker passed me in the middle of the 13th mile on Marietta Street.  I momentarily tried to keep up with her, GO! GO! GO! but wasn't able to stay with her faster pace and ended up dropping back.  I probably decided to dial it back a bit when I realized that I wasn't going to manage a 2-hour finish.  However, I made it past Baker Street, just three blocks from the finish, when my watch signaled the 2-hour mark.  When I checked my time afterwards, I required an additional 30 seconds for the last 3.1 miles over last year's race.  Still, I was very happy to finish 3-1/2 minutes faster than last year, and very much encouraged by my continued improvement.  Maybe 2017 will be the year that I break the 2-hour barrier on that tough course! 

My mile splits, elapsed times, and elevation changes are below:

Mile 1, 9:23, 9:23 elapsed, - 47 feet

Mile 2, 9:23, 18:46 elapsed, + 1 foot

Mile 3, 9:24, 28:10 elapsed, -15 feet

Mile 4, 9:27, 37:36 elapsed, +71 feet

Mile 5, 8:58, 46:34 elapsed, -28 feet

Mile 6, 9:10, 55:44 elapsed, -25 feet

Mile 7, 9:19, 1:05:03 elapsed, +22 feet

Mile 8, 9:13, 1:14:15 elapsed, -54 feet

Mile 9, 8:49, 1:23:04 elapsed, -118 feet

Mile 10, 9:30, 1:32:33 elapsed, +115 feet

Mile 11, 9:22, 1:41:55 elapsed, -38 feet

Mile 12, 9:52, 1:51:47 elapsed, +68 feet

Mile 13, 9:23, 2:01:10 elapsed, +37 feet

the last 0.1 mile, 0:53, 2:02:03 elapsed, 0 feet change, an 8:28 pace for the final sprint. 

In fact the official results show that I ran very slightly a negative split race, although it certainly didn't feel like it in the last few miles!