Ben’s Race Page

I’m sore. More sore than I have been after a race in a long time. I think it’s partly due to my training and partly due to the hilly course. My time was good for my training, but I showed 3:43 on my ipod and I really thought I had a PR. I’m not sure why my time was so far off, but looking at my splits, something must have happened between mile 10 and 13.1 because that’s where things seem to be off. That, or I didn’t see my ipod correctly at the 1/2 marathon mark. I was feeling great at the 1/2 point and was thinking of a 3:40 time, after all, the weather was perfect. It was around mile 17 where things started to go downhill and the hills started to catch up to me. By mile 20, I was pretty sore, but I kept going. At about mile 24 the 3:45 pace group caught up to me and I decided I was going to do my best to keep up with them. I did for a while until we hit a hill and I just couldn’t keep up, so I did my best to keep them in sight. I was spent by mile 26, but I kept going and seeing Carrie near the finish gave me the last little boost I needed to pick up the pace and finish strong.

Now on to the race. The first half was a great course. Good crowd support and interesting course. The second half was farther out of town and the crowd support was pretty thin. The course was pretty by the river, though and I had a little bit of a back and forth battle going with some girl running the race, so that kept me going. At the end of the river path, there was a really steep downhill that about did me in. I was fading as we headed back into town, but one of the bands was taking a break and they were playing Herbie Hancocks’ Chameleon over their sound system and that really gave me a boost. I thought I’d see Carrie at around mile 19 or 20, but I was ahead of my pace and she missed me. I only had a couple of complaints. First, they handed out red Accelerade. I don’t mind the Accelerade, but who decided red was a good idea? I didn’t get much on me, but several people had red stains all over their clothing. Second, the CMT Music Mile didn’t have as much music going on as had been promised. I’d guess that was due to the rain at the beginning of the race.

I want to say a big thanks to Tyler for driving and making plans in Tennessee. I stuck with him for the first few miles, but then he told me to go ahead and I did, even though I felt bad for ditching him. It was perfect weather, though, and I figured this was going to be my shot at a PR.

I also want to thank Carrie and Michelle for coming out to cheer us on and running around the course to find us at multiple spots. I know that can be frustrating and it is a lot of walking around and figuring out where to park, but it’s always a big help to see them on the course.

My friend Jen quit her job, rented her condo and bought a one way ticket to Bangkok. She’s planning to travel for a year without a set plan. She’s not sure how often she’ll be able to get online, but when she does, her blog should be interesting. Check it out here: Jen’s Travel Blog

I ran the Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon yesterday. It was a perfect day for running. I went out without a plan, but before the race, my buddy Tyler said he was going to run 9 minute miles. We ran the first mile together at 8:40 and decided to stay together. I sped the pace up to 8:26 and he wasn’t happy with me, but stayed with me and we ended up running the whole race together. I ran a little slower than I would have and he ran faster than he would have, but it worked out great. There were a lot more hills than I would have thought and that was tough, but it went well. I also didn’t really taper for this race and did a tough spinning class on the day before, so I probably couldn’t have run too much faster. Anyway, there was a big hill at around mile 5 or so and I was going to leave Tyler at the top, but he wasn’t too far behind and we stayed together. There was a girl who was pacing with us for most of the race and somewhere around mile 7, Tyler made a comment that he and I had been chatty and she was probably sick of us. It was a good way to invite her into the conversation and we chatted with her most of the rest of the way. At the mile 12 waterstation, I took off and finished a little ahead of them. I finished strong and met a few people at the end of the race. The girl found us at the end and congratulated us, so that was cool. The post race food was good. They had Arby’s marketfresh sandwiches, pizza, and Mello-Cream doughnuts along with the standard fruit. All in all, this was a great race and I would run it again. The entry fee was very reasonable and I even got a dri-fit shirt in the race packet! The medal is pretty cool, too. It’s a giant penny. Clever.

Also, I finally bought a new nike+. It did okay in this race given that I didn’t bother to calibrate it. I’m happy to have it back to keep track of my runs, especially since my garmin died about 2 miles into my 18 miler a couple of weeks ago.

I’m back on track and I feel good about my running. It’s also nice that the weather has been beautiful this weekend. I’m ready for my 20 mile training run next weekend and the Country Music Marathon at the end of the month.