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! 


March 3, 2016: Peachtree Road Race, 2015 Start Wave Standards




The purpose of the waves is to evenly distribute the start times for 60,000 registrants, so standards may change from year to year, based on the range of finish times submitted during March registration.  Last year some of the times changed by only a few seconds, at least in the B - C - D waves relevant to my times.  In my opinion this is a useful approximate guide, but is not a guarantee of the wave assignments for 2016. 

March 2, 2016: List of Peachtree Road Race Qualifiers

Now that the registration window is opening for the 2016 Peachtree Road Race, I thought it would be useful to share the qualifying races that the Atlanta Track Club lists in the registration portal.  This information is more difficult to find once the registration window closes later this month, but may be useful in the future for planning. 

Races are listed by name, distance, location of start line (state of Georgia unless otherwise listed), and the month that the race is typically run.  

MLK Day, 5K, Atlanta, January
Peachtree City, 5K or 10K, Peachtree City, January
Hot Chocolate, 5K or 15K, Atlanta, January

Hearts and Soles, 5K, Decatur, February
Tartan Trot, 5K or 10K, Dunwoody, February
Run Wild, 5K, Miami (FL), February
Spring Tune-Up, 8K or 15K, Atlanta, February
Charles Harris Run for Leukemia, 10K, Tucker, February
Chattahoochee Challenge, 10K, Roswell, February
Gasparilla, 15K, Tampa (FL), February

Chattahoochee Road Race, 5K or 10K, Sandy Springs, March
Intown Ten, 10K, Atlanta, March
Shamrock & Roll, 5K or 10K, Atlanta, March
Silver Comet, 10K, Mableton, March
Gate River Run, 15K, Jacksonville (FL), March
Publix Georgia, 13.1Mi, Atlanta, March (5K was run through 2015)
Atlanta Women's, 5K, Atlanta, March
Berry, 5K, 10K or 13.1Mi, Rome, March

Cooper River Bridge Run, 10K, Mt. Pleasant (SC), April
Atlanta Hawks Fast Break, 5K, Atlanta, April
Singleton, 5K or 10K, Norcross, April
Run the Reagan, 5K, 10K or 13.1Mi, Snellville, April (was run in February through 2015)

Braves Country, 5K, Atlanta, June

Peachtree Road Race, 10K, Atlanta, July

Jog Days of Summer, 5K, Atlanta, August
Atlanta's Finest, 5K, Atlanta, August

Tailgate, 5K, Buford, September
Big Peach Sizzler, 10KChamblee, September
Doug Kessler Lightning, 10K, Sandy Springs, September
Rise Up and Run, 5K, Atlanta, September

Michelob Ultra Atlanta, 13.1Mi, Atlanta, October
Peachtree City Classic, 5K or 15K, Peachtree City, October
Atlanta, 5K or 10Mi, Atlanta, October
AthHalf, 13.1Mi, Athens, October

Silver Comet, 13.1Mi, Mableton, October

Rock 'n' Roll Savannah, 13.1Mi, Savannah, November
Thanksgiving, 5K or 13.1Mi, Atlanta, November

The list of qualifying races may change from year to year.  I didn't include some 2014 races that are on the list but were not run in 2015 and apparently are not planned for 2016, such as the Carterville 10K.   Also, this is just the list posted in the registration portal by the Atlanta Track Club, but there are several other races run in metro Atlanta and hundreds of races in other parts of the country that are USATF certified.  Your finish time in those races will presumably be accepted if you provide the USATF certified road race name, date, distance, and your finish time.  The race must generally have been run in the past two years: for March 2016 entry, finish times back to January 1, 2014 are accepted.