STATE #5

Race Bib

After a long, hot summer, I’m back into the half marathon fix again.  In a span of three weeks, I’ll be running in three halves in three states: Tennessee, Louisiana and Florida.  I hope the weather continues to cool off.

It’s actually been a pretty warm autumn so far, but I picked the perfect weekend to drive to Nashville.  On race morning, it was downright cold, 42 but it rose up to 48 by race time and stayed in the low 50s throughout the race.  It was chilly, but it was perfect running weather.  I don’t expect it to be that cold in New Orleans next weekend or in Pensacola the weekend after that.

The Music City Half Marathon shouldn’t be confused with some of the larger events in the area, namely the St. Jude Country Music or Rock n Roll – Nashville events.  I would have loved to have run in the St. Jude but it came down to timing.  This event is a much smaller event and coordinated through a local running club. Typically they don’t have 500 entrants in the whole race and that worried me in the beginning.  This would be the smallest half marathon I’ve ever run in, and I wasn’t sure how much I’d like that.  Fears of finishing last or not having enough support along the course raced through my mind prior to the race with my legs.  I decided to commit and figured that this race would either end with me liking or hating small events.

Nashville

The race is an out and back starting at the Tennessee Titans Stadium and running mainly along a park trail before circling and returning to downtown Nashville.  There was basically no traffic along this route.  There were some other runners and bikers along the path but not enough to cause any issues.

At first glance, I felt as if there were probably 800 people at the starting line and a nice crowd to send runners on their way.  Turns out there were 475.  So much for estimations.  The first mile and a half run along an industrial road that was closed off but not utilized anyway since it was a Sunday morning.  I started off at the back this time since the field was pretty small and I didn’t want to feel too intimidated by faster runners and outpace myself too early.  As a result, I ended up passing a good many people for the first half of the race.  Not long after the race started, and I decided to turn on my iPod (I used the iPod this time since it was such a small race and I figured I could end up alone for large parts of the course), I found myself in a quite comfortable pace.  I ran a steady 10:30-11:00min mile throughout the first 9 miles.  This ended up giving me a false sense of believing that I was about to smash my personal best time of 2:30.  For much of the race, I felt on pace to finish anywhere between 2:15 and 2:25.

By Mile 2, we were on the Shelby Bottoms Greenway, a nice wooded pathway for runners and bikers.  It seems like paths cut straight through the woods at times but it was kept up very well.  There were several wooden bridges over ditches and creeks and all but one were solid.  One actually felt pretty rickety.  I ended staying around people or having people stay around me through the first 9 to 10 miles.  By Mile 4, we started seeing some of the leaders returning towards the finish line (about their Mile 9).  Wow, if only i could finish that fast.  But I continued to feel really comfortable.  I kept moving along.

Leaders heading back

The race support was actually quite generous at first.  There seemed to be water and gatorade stops everywhere.  However, two were missing on my return trip.  Also, by the time I got to the last two water stations, volunteers seemed more interested in drinking the water themselves instead of offering it to slow runners.  That was honestly my biggest complaint about this race.  Not a huge deal but still troubling enough especially since two of the water stops had closed up or ran out of water or whatever.

My downfall came at Mile 9, not so much that I was tired yet, but that I had lost track of the miles.  They had mile markers at every mile but the one at 8 was missing.  I was doing math in my head and thought that I was going to destroy my personal best.  I knew the Mile 8 sign had to be missing but felt that Mile 9 was missing as well.  Surely I was coming up on Mile 10.  It seemed to take forever.  But alas, when I approached the next sign, it was only Mile 9.  That was my first big deflation.  That’s when my pace slowed steadily to 11:30 and eventually into the 12 min/mile area.  I also had my longest walking stretch here as well.  I still thought I was going to beat my time but not by much.  It wasn’t until the last mile that I realized that I wasn’t going to beat it after all.  That deflated me to the point where I walked around the last curve to save up to run through the finish.  The clock said 2:33.  Well, not that bad but…

Wait a second.  I just checked back at my OFFICIAL times and realized that my 2:30 personal best from my Garmin actually counts any 13.1 mile stretch and not simply a race result.  So my Garmin says that my best half is 2:30.  But my official race records say that my best half before this race was 2:34:20 before this race.  So I did set a new personal best of 2:32:30.  Awesome!!!

Nearly a week afterward, I’m still mixed about this race.  I honestly felt like it was my best run half marathon yet, but I still feel like my time doesn’t seriously reflect it.  If I could have just concentrated more on the pace and not the distance, perhaps I could have finished five or even ten minutes faster.  So part of me is still slightly disappointed.  But all in all, I’m happy about the entire race and outcome.  With a flat NOLA and Pensacola coming up, perhaps I can break my PR again before the year ends.  I think from here on out, 2:30 is a great goal.  Hope to see you in New Orleans next weekend.  I will add that this race has made me really like small races.  Hopefully I’ll continue to pick out excellent races.  I’m glad I picked this one.  Now where am I going in 2015?

Race: Music City Half Marathon

Date: October 19, 2014, 8AM

Place: Nashville, Tennessee

Time: 2:32:30

Finisher Medal