The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Running

  • ING Georgia Half Marathon

    Jenn and I ran the ING Georgia Half Marathon today in lovely, cold, wet, windy Atlanta. Despite the weather and the hilly course, we both broke our personal records at the Half distance. I had wondered if I was going to be able to because my first half marathon was in Tulsa and was an exceptionally flat course. This was not flat. I turned in a 1:55:21, which comfortably beat my goal of 2 hours, and was 8 minutes faster than my previous PR 1:03:20. I’m happy with that. We even had a support crew this year!1

    My Splits, for those who are still reading:

    Mile 0-1 – 9:13
    Mile 1-2 – 8:57.5*
    Mile 2-3 – 8:57.5*
    Mile 3-4 – 8:46
    Mile 4-5 – 8:33
    Mile 5-6 – 8:36.175*
    Mile 6-7 – 8:36.175*
    Mile 7-8 – 8:36.5*
    Mile 8-9 – 8:36.5*
    Mile 9-10 – 8:49
    Mile 10-11 – 9:15
    Mile 11-12 – 8:50
    Mile 12-13 – 8:40
    Mile 13-13.1 – 0:52
    * Where I missed a mile post and divided the time between the miles

    Total Time: 1:55:21
    Pace: 8:48 per mile

    You can tell where things got a bit unpleasant. From mile 8 to 10.5, there were some long uphills, and I’d run a bit too fast out of the gate; they ate me up. The last three miles were a struggle to stay on a pace and just bring it home. Thankfully, at mile 10 I knew that barring crazy circumstances I was going to break 2 hours, so I didn’t feel bad backing off a tad.

    This was a tough race for me. This is the first time in a while that I’ve trained with a specific time goal in mind, plus the weather was chilly and wet. Cool is fine, but this was on the cold side of cool. I nearly froze my butt off waiting to pick up my gear bag after the race, and on the walk back to the car.

    It was a good race. I’m not sure I’d do it again. I wasn’t psyched about the organization:

    • We never managed to get into our correct starting corral because of the jam of people. We ended up being in #3 when we were supposed to be in #4 (me) and #5 (Jenn).
    • Gear check was smooth; gear pickup was anything but. If they hadn’t thrown organization out the window at the end and allowed atletes to come in and find their bags, I’m sure some people would still be there.
    • My biggest beef was the ending trough. They pulled us into centennial park between fencing so that people could stand and cheer, but the fencing was only about 10 feet wide so there’s no safe opportunity for the last minute surges that racers like. I suppose I can just take that into account and make sure to surge before I get to the park, but I still don’t like it.
    • They made no attempt to clear the way for the lead marathoners at the finish. The last bit through the park was filled with 2:15 half-marathoner’s when the first man came through. He was forced to dodge and weave through the much slower pack. That would have annoyed the crap out of me.

    Lest you think it was all doom and gloom, the race course chosen for the Half was a nice one. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I could have because I was concentrating on pushing the pace, but it was scenic tour of Atlanta and East Fulton County.

    Overall, it was a satisfactory race, with me accomplishing the goals I set. The weather could have been better, but it wasn’t by any means terrible. There’s still some tweaking the organizers should accomplish and we’ll see what they manage next year.

    1: Many thanks to our friends Scott and Courtney Turnbull for driving us to the race, cheering in multiple locations, then hanging around in the windy chill while we collected out stuff. It’s always nice to have someone rooting for you!

  • Atlanta Track Club Resolution 10k

    Warning: Self-congratulatory post ahead.

    The Atlanta Track Club has a number of races as a part of their Grand Prix, which all ATC members can go to, for free (it’s part of the membership fees). One of them is on January 1st, at 12:00 noon, and it’s called the Resolution 5/10k. You pick your race distance. It’s nicely placed later in the day for people to recover from the previous evening’s debauchery—at least partly.

    I’ve been keeping in shape since the 1/2 marathon I ran in November, so I had high hopes of beating the 1 hour mark in the 10k, although my goal of sub 55:00 seemed unlikely because of the hangover I awoke with. I told Jenn on the drive to the race that I wasn’t going to beat 55:00 but that I’d be pissed if I didn’t break an hour.

    Well, let’s just say that training for a 1/2 marathon makes excellent base training for shorter distances. I smoked my previous 10k PR by 18 minutes, coming in at 51:47. Awesome. I’m psyched! What was even cooler was that I was only 30 seconds off my 5k PR when I hit the halfway mark. That means that the next time I race a 5k, I’ll probably break 25:30, which will be very nice (I’m not yet shooting to break my best ever time in the 5k, which was 21:07, when I was 16).

    Obviously, I now have a new goal to strive for: beating this time in the 10k. The 55:00 minute mark was important because that is the qualifying time for time groups 1a and 1b in the Peachtree Road Race, on July 4th, with 55,000 people. Getting up in those groups puts you ahead of about 45,000 people, which is really important if you don’t want to wait 45 minutes to cross the start line.

    Yay me! I think I will sign up for the ING Georgia Half-Marathon now. If nothing else, the long slow runs did a great job preparing me for this 10k.

    My splits, in case you’re interested:
    1 mile – 9:06
    3 mile – 16:56 (I missed the two mile split, so we’ve got two 8:28 splits)
    4 mile – 7:57
    5 mile – 8:36
    6 mile – 7:56
    10 k – 1:16

    5 k split – 26:44
    Total – 51:47

    You can probably tell from my splits where the uphill-into-the-wind sections were. The course was two laps of a 5k run. The second lap was decidedly windier than the first. I estimate we had 10 knot winds with gusts to 20. It caught me good a few times.

  • Tulsa Half Marathon

    As the most recent post apprises you, I and my wife ran in the Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon on Sunday, November 18. The decision to do this race was mine, and she nicely tagged along with me. I had figured that it would be a good opportunity to do a half, and I didn’t particularly want to run either the half or the full in Atlanta on thanksgiving (I don’t like the route; it’s boring). (more…)

  • A Post, in Which I Praise Myself

    I ran the Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon today. This was my first every half-marathon. Go me! This was cool on several levels, including that I’ve never run this far before in my life. But it was also cool because I went in thinking, “Oh…2:24, 2:15, something like that for the time.” Instead, I turned in a 2:03:20, which is a 9:25 pace. Wow. I was totally not expecting that. Even better, I managed to turn in negative splits for the whole race, where each subsequent mile is faster than the one before it. (more…)

  • Motivation

    Recently I alluded to my flittering attention span when it comes to hobbies. I’ll pick something up and be, like, totally into it for a while and then it fades to a second tier status. I’ve made inroads in the past few years to cut back on this tendency, attempting to set aside those things I know I’ll never get back to, disposing of the corpse, if you will.

    There’s been a few things in the past year that I’ve made a strong commitment to and am attempting to keep up there on top level priority status. This blog is one, although it slips back occasionally. My Podcast is another, although it, too, slips back. The few things that occupy front and center priority are 1) my wife 2) my job 3) my fitness, pretty much in that order. As things are going, I’m doing fairly well on these three, but we’re about to hit a milestone and/or stumbling block for number 3. (more…)

  • Butt Blasting your Ears

    I run. You probably know this.

    I usually run with my Ipod nano, listening to music. Some people listen to podcasts, but I’ve never really gotten in to doing that while running.

    Unless I’m on a long run, during which I carry a waist belt with a water bottle, I stick the nano in a pocket of my running shorts. This can cause serious aural harm if, for example, you throw the music player in your back pocket without turning the “hold” button on. Then, after five minutes, when you’ve sweat enough to get a nice sheen of electrolytic fluid (sweat) on the cloth that is touching the Ipod click wheel, BOOOM!, the volume jumps to eleven. I bet I look funny when I suddenly stop on the side of the road, scrabbling at my pocket.

    Oddly, it only ever turns the volume up. This has happened to me three times, and my butt never wants to listen to the music at a lower volume.

  • Running Milestone

    Exceptionally personal post. Do not pass go. Especially if you don’t want to hear me crowing about myself. Yay me!

    Jenn and I are running in the Tulsa Marathon before Turkey Day. We’re only running the half marathon, but the last time I was training up to long distances, I hit the 10 mile mark and had an injury. “Kapoof” and I didn’t run any farther than a 10k for 2.3 years.

    Then came last Sunday. I ran an 11.1 mile route, in training for the good ‘ol 13.1 to come on November 18, and I realized that this is the farthest I’ve ever run, in my entire life. I was a track person in high school, but I distinctly remember the longest run I did back then, and it was only 10 miles.

    So, go me! Of course, I’ve walked and/or hiked farther distances than that. I believe that the longest hike I’ve ever done was 16 miles, so I’ve got a bit to go to top that with my running. I also don’t plan to extend my distance running past the half-marathon point, as I’ll have other races to train for that will be shorter, but it’s nice to look at a milestone like this and know that I’ve reached it through hard work and dedication.

    And no injury!

  • Walking with Frodo et al.

    Jim, of Physics is Phun, pointed me in the direction of a site that allows you to track your mileage along the route of the Fellowship of the Ring, from Hobbinton to Rivendell and onward. Side trips are included such as the ride of Gandalf and Pippin from Isengard to Minas Tirith. Everything a Tolkien geek and runner needs.

  • Google Maps Hack for Route Mapping

    Thanks to Tom, I’ve been alerted to gmap-pedometer.com. It lets you manually enter routes (say) for running and calculates your mileage to a degree that is way more accurate than you need. It gets you down to the 1/5th of a foot, which is a bit silly, in my opinion.

    Here is an example, if you want to run along the Silver Comet Trail in Georgia.

    This is neat, although time consuming if you don’t live in a place with absolutely straight routes. You need to click on each curve point, or Google will draw straight lines across the intervening territory. While this would be an entertaining run, I don’t advocate it.

  • It Hailed on Me!

    Totally unfair…

    After RainIt’s April. I’m in Laurel, MD. I leave the hotel to go running and BAM, it starts thundering and hailing, plus lots of rain. Here’s the nice view from my window at the Outback attached to the hotel. Notice the nice after-rain sheen. It doesn’t quite catch the chilling 15 degree drop in temperature, the soaked t-shirt, the blowing wind with attendant wind chill, and the pea size hail bouncing off my face. Unhappy was I.

    But I came back and finished on the treadmill. Gosh I’m a dedicated person.

    18:01 Edit: This was the cloud that should have clued me in to not go running. I took this picture about 5 minutes before heading out the door.

    Stormclouds Moving In