The Half Marathon

I ran the half marathon Saturday and it was a mostly fantastic experience. The company that organized the event, Elite Racing, did a great job. This is not too surprising since they charged $90 to register and had something like thirty thousand people running/walking either the half or the full marathon. Once you sign up, you start getting really useful e-mails reminding you to eat well and keep training. As the date gets closer Elite Racing mails you a standard release waiver, which you take to a convention center to sign in. 

Upon entering the hall where racers were signing in, I saw something that made me smile. Instead of long lines, I saw a wide open area with tables upon tables set up for people to sign in by first letter of last name. There were no lines at all. Upon leaving the sign-in area, I walked through a checkout area where I was given a computer chip to attach to my shoe. I then walked over to the t-shirt tables, tore off the first of two tabs from my race number and exchanged it for a t-shirt. Racers were then shunted into the shopping section where vendors were selling all manner of crap. The wife and I purchased two pint glasses, which go quite nicely with our athletic lifestyle. All of the stuff I had been given or purchased fit in the plastic drawstring bag I got at sign in. 

The night before the race, I attached the chip to my shoe. I tore the remaining tab off my number and  zip-tied it to the plastic drawstring bag. Into the plastic bag went everything I thought I might need after the race. The morning of, the wife and I woke up, dressed, ate some fruit and a couple of Cliff bars, and walked down to the starting area. Once at the starting area we found our way to the bag drop-off, which consisted of a long row of UPS trucks organized, again, by first letter of last name. You find your truck, hand over your bag, and wander over to your starting corral.  The only downer was that there was about a half hour of standing around, feeling nervous while trying to keep muscles loose. Several times an announcer would tell the racers that the event was very close to starting. Eventually, the gun went off and the first corral was let go. The gun sounded strangely flat, like it was insignificant for the job of setting thirty thousand people in motion. We were in the fourth corral and so we didn't go with the gun. Instead, we walked forward after each corral ahead of us was let go. At long last we were the next corral to go.

Each corral held a thousand people and when we were released I could watch people ahead of me beginning to run. Heads would begin bobbing and moving away, forming this rippling, backwards wave that finally reached the wife and I as we started running the longest race either of us had ever run. 

You probably never gave much thought to the sound of running shoes on pavement, but it really is an impressive sound when there are thousands of people running right next to you. Running down the middle of one of the main streets in Nashville, surrounded by other runners with miles and miles ahead of me felt similar to the few times I've been swimming in the ocean further from land than I can swim.

Everyone seemed quiet at the start of the race and the pace was pretty uniform. We went out a few miles, turned around, came back a half mile and began the first real hill. I was feeling good and cruised on up, leaving the wife behind. At the top of the hill we followed a loop through fives miles of residential area. The wife caught up with me at this point and we ran together for a while. The field was thinning out and people were beginning to talk. We passed a number of bands, some playing great running music, other not so much. At the end of the residential section we had completed about eight miles and went back down the hill we had come up. At this point the wife left me, and I didn't see her again until the end of the race. As she was running away from me I decided that I wouldn't make it if I spent the energy to keep up with her. I figured I had five miles left, I was feeling good but a little tired and should conserve so that I could maintain a reasonable pace through to the end. This plan almost worked. I, more or less, rolled through miles nine and ten, just concentrating on maintaining a smooth, even stride.

But at mile ten I was cooked. My longest training run had been nine miles, and suddenly my body wanted to know what exactly was up with all this not-stopping business. My legs began to feel leaden, and my smooth, even stride that had carried me through ten miles at a seven minute and fifty second pace gave way to a pained shuffle that carried me at a nine minute and twenty second pace. I consumed my Power Gel and started grabbing water, although it did little for me. The slightest incline was excruciating and I kept having to fight off the urge to quit. It seemed preposterous to stop running with two miles left, but my legs were running on reserves I hadn't dug into in as long as I can remember. The last half mile was down hill and I kept thinking that if I had the slightest kick, I could maybe shave a few seconds off my time. No such luck. Runners poured past me as I tried and failed to maintain a decent pace. There was no euphoria as I turned onto the last two hundred yard section to the finish line. I completed the race, and it was all I could do to keep walking.  I immediately found my wife, or rather she found me, and we wandered through the finish area.

The finish area was stocked with free food and water. There was a station where you leaned against a railing and someone clipped the computer chip off your shoe -- you didn't even have to bend down. Upon leaving the finish area, we headed over to the bag pick up area. All you had to do was make it to the right UPS truck. Even if you couldn't speak, people could read the number pinned to your shirt and go retrieve your bag. 

I ran thirteen and one tenth miles in one hour, forty-seven minutes and twenty-five seconds. I missed my target goal by just over two minutes. Not so bad, for such suffering at the end, but I wish I had done better. The wife did really well, running the same distance in an hour and forty two minutes, placing her at 894th out of better than twenty one thousand runners. Next time I wont pull my calf and I'll do more distance training.