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Race: Country Music Half Marathon
Location: Nashville, TN
Date: 4/28/2012
Time/Temp: 7:00 am / 61° 91%rh at the start, 74° 66%rh at the end
Distance: 13.1m
Official Time: 2:19:44 *New PR (Does the first half of a full marathon count for this?)
Pace: 10:40/mi

Since this is a chip timed half-marathon. A little bit of extra info.
5k Split: 32:30
10k Split: 1:05:48

Place info
Overall: 8486 out of 22277
Age Group: 711 out of 1281
Gender: 4305 out of 8088

Although I have been training in sort of a maintenance type mode, I was not in great shape for this race. I got a little burnt out on running after my Full Marathon in December and haven’t been working as hard as I need to.

That coupled with a pretty darn hot day made for a tough race. I knew it would be tough and had pretty low expectations. I knew there was pretty much no way I’d be able to match what I did in the first half of the St. Jude Marathon, and really only hoped to better my time from Last year. Officially this is only the second half marathon I’ve done.

I wore my GPS watch, but I also hit the manual lap timer ever 2 miles. So I have splits from 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, as well as the last 1.1 miles as well. Here are those splits:

LAP TIME AVG. PACE
1 20:34 9'59"/mi
2 21:29 10'40"/mi
3 21:29 10'40"/mi
4 21:27 10'43"/mi
5 20:57 10'23"/mi
6 21:24 10'43"/mi
7 12:37 10'47"/mi


My friends and I were all going for different goals that day, so we decided not to run together, We all started together, but I was going to be running a lot slower than the times they were going for, so after about .5 of a mile, I didn’t any of them ever again, so I ran the whole way alone.

So I went out of the gate on tempo pace, but backed it off to some more moderate miles toward the middle of the race. Nashville has a lot of hills, it was hot, and like I said, I didn’t think I was in all that good a shape, I wanted to leave myself with some energy for a good kick at the end, and I didn’t think I could go at 10:00 miles the whole way.

My double secret plan was to get to Mile 10 at that pace, then start picking back up to 10:00 or slightly faster miles for the last 5k to the finish line. That wasn’t going to be the case at all, I slightly sped up a bit at around mile 9 trying to make up some time and get ready for the last 5k kick, (which you can see in split 5) but the energy just wasn’t there, and I quickly fell back into my regular shuffle pace. At mile 11, I was struggling to stay on that pace. The heat and the hills were starting to get to me at that point pretty hard. My last mile would have been a lot worse, but when I saw the Mile 13 sign I started sprinting hard to the finish line, with all I had left. I ended up running the last .2 or so at like an 8:00 pace. It might not have gotten me much, but maybe it shaved a few seconds off or so, it might have been the difference in breaking 2:20 and not though, as I did come in at 2:19:44.

This is a new PR for the half marathon. I ran the first half of the St. Jude Memphis Marathon in 2:14:15, but I don’t know if those count for half PR’s. I don’t think that you are supposed to do that. I’d like to try a half on a different course, (less hilly, and maybe cooler weather).

This is also the first time I’ve went a distance of more than 4 mi in a race not carrying my own water. I used the course water the whole way, usually taking a couple sips at each water stop, I think I might have skipped one and regretted it. I didn’t use any Gatorade or GU, but I did carry a pack of Sport Beans with me, which I ate throughout the race, I finished I think with four left in the pouch. I don’t think, it’s worth carrying water anymore for a race, as it was fine, maybe I will still carry a bottle if I run another full.

All in all, like I said, I’m alright with it. I knew it wasn’t going to be great, but I had an awesome time, and I think I’m refocused on running again. This is the first race I’ve had since my marathon. I like races, they are so much fun. Nashville, is such a pretty city, and since last year I was so focused on the race, I didn’t pay any attention to others or the course, this time I let my mind wander, and soak up the surroundings a little bit.

Some other stats for you:
Barefoot runners I passed: 2
Barefoot runners that passed me: 1
Vibram 5 fingers runners passed: 1
Vibram 5 fingers runners that passed me: 0
Guys in three piece suits passed: 2
Group of about 5 people carrying a Chinese Dragon (WTF!) passed: 1
Team Gomer Shirts seen: 1 (Pre race)

I need a 10k soon. Gumtree 10k is soon. I had a great Gumtree last year, I don’t think I could match that at this time, but it might be fun trying.

I’ll add some pictures to the album later if I find any. I didn’t take any myself, and I doubt I’ll buy any from the official photographers, but maybe I can find one or two somewhere online.

written by Chris \\ tags: 13.1, Half Marathon, Nashville, Running, Tennessee

I noticed that it had been quite a while since my last posting here. I guess I don’t really have anything new to add, but then I thought, well, maybe I do.

So I have quick updates on three different fronts.
RUNNING
I’m running in my second half marathon toward the end of this month. And to be quite honest, I’m not in very good shape right now. Not nearly as good a shape as my first half marathon a year ago, and way worse shape than my first full marathon in December.

I’m still running of course, about five days a week right now, it amounts to somewhere between 25-30 miles per week at this time. This is more than I was running last year at this time before my half marathon, but the times are slower, it seems harder to run, etc. I don’t know. We’ll see.

I only have one goal for the half, and that is to beat my previous half marathon time of 2:22:35 (I think). I feel like this is still doable, but it will be close looking at my running times lately. I won’t even be close to the 2:12 ish that I ran the first half of my full marathon in December though, and that’s dissappointing. I’ve got to get in race shape sometime soon. Maybe for the fall races.

Speaking of Fall races, I had a pipe dream about maybe running the Marine Corps Marathon in October, but the darn thing sold out in like 2 hours. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just do St. Jude again. It was a nice fun marathon. And it would be the same course.

BOARDGAMES
I have been playing games a little bit more. Mostly due to starting up a Risk Legacy Group. I’m liking Risk Legacy so far. But it does still feel very risk like, albeit, it plays completely differently because of the missions instead of the world conquest goal.

I auctioned off several games in order to help pay for a trip to Geekway to the West in May. I’m looking forward to that. But I did get rid of some good stuff. I was extremely sad to be letting go of my painted copy of Space Hulk, and my copy of Star Wars: The queen’s Gambit, but honestly, neither really got played, and if I’m playing a two player game, there are many others I would tend to gravitate towards before those anyway. Some others that left were Titan, Aladdin’s Dragons, Antike, Pandemic, Havoc: The Hundred Years War, Ghost Stories, Wok Star, and a few others I can’t think of anymore. The coop purge was long overdue. I only want to keep a couple of those around, and Battlestar Galactica is mine, Shadows over Camelot is Val’s and I’ve also got Lord of the Rings still, but that’s just for theme.

I don’t know if Geekway to the West has a flea market, but I might take some stuff up to that if it does. This can help me tame my overrun shelves.

GUITAR
Still goofing off with trying to learn guitar, it’s been a couple of months now, but I still don’t know a single song. I go through a few exercises each night but nothing that resembles music yet.

I was going to take a class at the community learning center, but unfortunately it didn’t make. I was so bummed out. So I ended up signing up to take lessons at Austin’s Music for a little while. I’ve had a couple of lessons so far, and picked up a few things as well, but it’s helping me focus more on what to practice, and it gives me somewhere to ask dumb questions too.

That’s pretty much it, each of those could be gone into in more depth, but I don’t really have time right now. I suppose I’ll get back in a blogging mood someday soon and fill in some of the gaps of our life. Easter was fun. I should get Val to post some pictures here.

written by Chris \\ tags: 13.1, Boardgames, Country Music, Game Collection, Guitar, Half Marathon, Learning, Marathon, Nashville, Purge, Running, Tennessee

So I’m officially back in training again. After my marathon, I had basically taken December through February off. I ran, but not with a schedule or calendar or anything. And I never ran more than 12 miles.

That ended this week. I registered for the St. Jude Country Music Marathon in Nashville, TN on April 28th. It will be my second half marathon.

As far as my training plan. I just plugged the race day into Runners World smartcoach app on my iPhone, and did the moderate plan. I’ll be running 25-30 miles per week until race day. But they won’t be particularly long.

One thing I will be doing though, is running five days a week instead of four. And the extra day is a speed workout day/tempo run day on Wednesday. I’ve done these types of workouts before, but not with any regularity. I’m looking forward to seeing if I’ll actually gain any benefit. I will say this, the tempo run on Wednesday was the hardest run I’ve had in a while, even though it was short.

I’m not going in with any particular goals other than to have fun, running this one with my friends. Granted, beating my last time is a bit of a goal. Last year I ran it in 2:22:35

written by Chris \\ tags: Half Marathon, Nashville, Race, Running, Tennessee, Training

Race: Country Music Half Marathon
Location: Nashville, TN
Date: 4/30/2011
Time/Temp: 7:00 am / 60° at the start, Probably moved up to about 75° by the finish
Distance: 13.1m
Official Time: 2:22:35
Pace: 10:53/mi

Since this is a chip timed half-marathon. A little bit of extra info.
5k Split: 34:32
10k Split: 1:08:13
10mi Split: 1:49:13

Place info
Overall: 10148 out of 22010
Age Group: 818 out of 1217
Gender: 4973 out of 7978

I had a great trip to Nashville TN. I took off work on Friday Morning and left early for Nashville. Upon arrival, first thing I did was head to the Expo. This being my first half-marathon, and first really big race, I was curious as to what these expo things are like that I’ve read and heard about. After registering and getting a super cool t-shirt and bib, I made my way to the expo. I was overwhelmed with all the stuff there. I saw some running celebrities giving little pep talks and shows. They had some super cool merchandise that I had to keep talking myself out of buying, and all kinds of medical, nutrition, and apparel choices for running.

I walked around entirely too much and actually started to feel a little bit tired, I don’t think it’s a good idea to spend too much time walking around at that thing. So I decided to call it a day and get on out of there without buying much. I did break down and buy some new headphones. My stash is running low and they seemed pretty good for the price. I ended up leaving at around 3 or 4 or so and heading south to Smyrna.

This trip was also a reunion of sorts with all my best friends from college. They are the reason that I’ve always wanted to run this race as most of them are repeat runners of the event. We were meeting up the night before to have some chicken and pasta and ‘carb up’ before the race the next morning. (Thanks a bunch Beth!) I had so many questions and was getting so nervous about how to get to the race, etc. In the end, one of them offered to let me stay in his hotel room on the start line instead of my original plans. I ended up taking him up on the offer as it would allow me to sleep an extra hour or two in the morning. This was huge! Thanks CO.

It was at about this time I almost made a truly fatal mistake!!! You see we decided to drop off my car at the finish line and he gave me a ride to the hotel. I grabbed my stuff and headed up. Upon arrival and beginning to get everything ready for the race, I discovered that I had two left shoes. I had brought two different pairs of shoes to run in, as I wasn’t sure yet which I would use. But after parking my car and grabbing a pair, it seemed I actually grabbed two half pairs. I ended up having to catch a ride back to my car, get the other shoe, and get back that night. Taking away a little bit of my sleep but thankfully at least I noticed it that night instead of in the morning!!! I will never make that mistake again.

Waking up the next morning and walking to the start line was quick and easy. Got up ate a clif bar and walked out to my corral and met up with my friends.

I started out slow and steady. It was a fun race, very crowded, by far the biggest race I’ve ever been in (next biggest would have to be that Fairfax 4 mile race at something like 1200) But the run felt good, and easy and I was slowly ticking the miles away, determined not to go out too fast and spend too much energy.

Although I didn’t have a real goal other than finish. I tried to make things as steady and even as possible. I find after about 40 minutes or so, I can get in a zone where I feel like I can run forever. I also feel invincible and fast (haha) when I’m in this zone. So at about that time I feel like I picked up the pace. I should let you know that I did not wear a watch for this race, nor did I start any timers or pace equipment that gave me any instant feedback. One of my friends had a Garmin on and would sometimes tell me our pace, but that was the only info I was getting. I don’t have mile split information, but I feel like my miles in the second half of the race were faster than the ones in the first half, which was also sort of a secondary goal.

The bummer was that sometimes I would get to going pretty good, and have to slow down and weave because of all the people. I suppose that is one of the hazards to running a big race, but I’m sure I used a lot of energy getting around people and changing my pace around like that.

Nothing hurt until around the 11 mile mark or so. And even then it was only general soreness nothing major, and nothing was going to stop me from finishing the race from that point anyway. It was also around this time that CO stepped up his encouragement to me in getting to the finish. He had gone out of his way several times during the race to make sure I could run a steady race. Despite his best efforts though, I unfortunately had no ‘hammer’ to drop at the time he asked me to do so. I did my best though and kept on trucking.

I went through the switchbacks heading toward LP field and the finish line trying hard to keep my emotions in check as I was about to finish. When I turned a corner and saw the finish line only 50 or 60 meters away or so I was kinda shocked as I expected it to be a little longer up to the stadium. I had been thinking about this moment for a long time and I was hoping for a minute or two of looking at the finish line while approaching it for everything to sink in. But we were there in a flash!

Everything after that point shuttling through the finishers chute also happened so fast I really didn’t have a moment for everything to sink in. Phone reception in the finish area was horrible, and I tried to send some messages out to my friends and family that had encouraged me, however, the communications were hit and miss though and not everything went through successfully.

Thinking back on the race. I had a blast; It had a little bit of back and forth as I was around most of my friends for nearly the whole race, we all finished within about 5 minutes of each other. I was proud of what I had done. I managed to run the whole way without walking. The hills on the route all seemed very manageable and spaced out, and not excessive.

Shortly after finishing I managed to link back up fairly quickly with my friends and snapped a photo.

And then, we were done. We stretched the race out a tad by going to lunch and having a few beers. After that MB was gracious enough to invite us back to his house and spend the afternoon at their home sitting and chatting about the experiences.

Soon though it was time to leave for the evening to head to another friends house to play a couple of board games and get some sleep before having to head back home early the next morning. (We played Tobago & Lord of the Rings: The Card Game if you’re interested. The Lord of the Rings Card Game is pretty good, it was my first play of that one.)

And so my weekend was done. I have been wanting to run this race for years and now I have finally done so. It took a lot of hard work and effort to make it happen, but it has all been worth it.

I have a new appreciation for all those people out there completing half and full marathons. I now know that those cool medals are not won on the day of the race. They are won at 5am on an 8° morning two months before the race when you’re laying in bed deciding whether or not it would be okay to skip running just this one time.

Congratulations to all my friends for finishing this race and all past races. Thanks for doing it with me, I’m happy I was finally able to be a part of it.

Now I’m trying to decide what long term goal to do next. Another half and the full, of course are at the top of the list, but the when and where for either of those is the big question. I wanted to give myself a week or so to relish in this before making a decision though.

written by Chris \\ tags: 13.1, Burritos, Country Music, Half Marathon, Nashville, Running, Tennessee

At this point, I feel like I’ve done the work I have to do. If I fail at this point it would have been because of something out of my control. I leave tomorrow morning for the beautiful city of Nashville, TN for the Country Music Half Marathon. I’ve basically been working toward this for the last year of my life. What seemed to be so hard a year ago, kinda seems like it’s quite achievable now. To the point I’m almost ashamed to be placing so much emphasis in my life on it.

I essentially followed my training plan. Not exactly, but mostly. It was only a run here or there that I shortened, or lengthened, or ran early or late, or switched out one long run for another, etc.

I ran my 12 miler two weeks ago now, but I’m going a little insane now because last Saturday I only ran 8 miles, and only two miles each on Monday and Wednesday Morning. I know I’m supposed to taper and be well rested for Saturday’s half marathon, but it still makes me nervous that I’ve really only run 4 miles this week, with zero cross training as well.

I came close to a disaster last Saturday though. After I ran my 8 miles, Val, the Kids, and I volunteered some time at the Ole Miss Track Meet. I ended up working the Hammer throw being the ‘marker’. This meant that after the hammers were thrown I ran out to the hammer, and stuck a stick in the ground where it first hit the ground so they could pull the tape and measure the distance. Well, the ground was a little wet, coupled with multiple sprints out to the hammers every minute or two and I did start to develop a blister on my left foot. I stuck it out and finished the hammer throw, but when asked to do the same thing for the discus I had to chicken out and switch jobs to something more stats based. It was a good thing, I didn’t pop the blister and it’s pretty much healed completely now. I hardly felt it on Monday, and it was basically unnoticeable for my run on Wednesday.

I think I’ll have a bunch of fun on Saturday. I have no time goals at all. Only hope to finish, although I secretly hope to be able to do it in 2:30 or so. I know I’m not supposed to do that, but it is kinda in the back of my mind as a secondary goal.

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to RK and his family for putting me up for a couple of nights as well. With Val and the Kids unable to attend, it really saved me a bunch of money and time not having to find a race hotel close to the start or finish line. Not only that, but built in tired-runner-friendly entertainment as well! (Well, as long as they don’t make me play dancing eggs…) I think we’re going to try to play a board game or two on Saturday Evening after I’ve finished… hopefully I’ve finished…

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Country Music, Half Marathon, Injuries, Nashville, Ole Miss, Running, Tennessee, Track & Field