ING Georgia Marathon Race Report (Read 705 times)

I woke up bright and early at 4 AM this morning for my very first marathon, the ING Georgia Marathon. I chose this to be the first because 1) My hometown marathon, the Mercedes Marathon went to a double loop format this year and that didn't seem as interesting as their original route, 2) My best friend lives there close to downtown Atlanta, and I knew she'd take good care of me afterwards, and 3) I figured the terrain would be similar to that of Birmingham so I could more easily train. It was fun getting on the MARTA train this morning and seeing that everyone aboard was going to the race. The start was set at Centennial Olympic Park, which is a pretty big area. Once I managed to do gear check, I hit the bathroom line for one final go around 6:30 AM for a race start at 7:04. Long story short, after trying a few different lines in various sections of the park, I knew there was no way I was going to make it, so I headed to corral 3 to find my pace group. My basic plan, from the premise that a marathon is a 20-mile warm-up to a 10K race, was to get in the 9:45 pace group for the first 20 and then if I felt like it, keep picking it up till the end. Now, I knew my plan would have to change in order to get to a restroom once I was on the course. When the race started, the pace group took off like lightning, and I spent the first few miles trying to get into the pack. Finally, I caught a break and was able to catch up, and given that there was a lot of long downhills in the first part of the race, I decided to take advantage of my strengths to try to get ahead of them so that maybe I could rejoin them after I found relief from all the awesome hydrating I'd done in the lead-up to the race. But every time I passed a port-a-potty, it had a line 10-15 people deep, so I kept going. By mile 6 the situation was getting a little dire and I had to slow down a bit, but I knew the half-marathon folks would be splitting off at 7, so maybe things would get better. The 4:15 pace group reappeared, and when I finally was able to stop at mile 8, I knew that was probably the last time I'd see them. After the split off, the marathoners go to Druid Hills, Decatur, and Druid Hills again. Druid Hills really lives up to its name...long downhills which were nice for my efforts to make up some time, but some really long uphills that sapped my energy. My pace dropped to a little more than 10 min/mi for some of those sections. Decatur was a long section, but entertaining signs and a lot of crowd support, as well as hills that were more of the "rolling" variety made this one of the more pleasant sections of the race. At the end of Decatur, we hit the 13.1 mark, and I decided I was feeling pretty good. My ankle that plagued me during training had bugged me around mile 3ish, but at this point, the only thing that seemed to be taking a beating was the soles of my feet. I also wished that I hadn't ditched my throw-away gloves and shirt early in the race, since I was now going to be going against a strong, cold wind from now till the finish. Up, up, up we went. Somehow they seemed to have found a route that was entirely uphill. The neighborhood around Oakhurst had orange slices at the top of a particularly long hill, which was timely, and I followed that up with my second Oatmeal Creme Pie (those work better on my stomach than the gels, although I did alternate with gels to get the extra electrolytes since Gatorade also bothers me). And then I totally caught my second wind. Between miles 18-20, the hills seemed so much easier. I passed so many people. At 20, I was still smiling and I knew that I was really going to do this. My longest training run had been 22 miles, and I knew that 22-24 was another long uphill section, so I decided to just continue going at the current pace, which was close to my targeted pace of 9:45, and still felt very comfortable. I had my last gel around 22 to tide me over for the end, and I hung pretty tough until mile 24, when things kind of seemed to drag on and my legs were getting really, really fatigued. Starting to stress out just a bit, things got worse when, to add to the never-ending uphills (seriously now, who designed this course????), the Kids' Marathon started ON THE SAME COURSE. Suddenly I was surrounded by hundreds of 4 ft tall missiles all running or walking at various speeds, randomly criss-crossing my path. Isn't the average marathon finishing time somewhere between 4:00-4:30...did they really schedule this to occur at the peak arrival time? Very poor planning. I was unimpressed with the finish line as well. Publix Supermarkets was the sponsor and all they had was water, apples, bananas and pretzels. I have been so spoiled by the Mercedes Marathon, which has catered bar-be-que, and more importantly, a vast quantity of students from area schools of massage. If this is the difference between a smallish marathon and a big one, I'll take the small one anyday. It took me 45 minutes of baby steps to make it back up to MARTA to go home. I was utterly unprepared for how much my legs were going to be hurting once I stopped running. After a shower and an afternoon of light shopping, I'm doing much better, but I'm told that tomorrow is going to be even worse. Still, I am thrilled that I finished...not just finishing though, smiling up till the end (at least till the little monsters appeared). And so close to my goal pace (4:17:??, 9:49 min/mi)! I'm going to lean more toward trails after my road relay in May, but I can definitely see more marathons in my future.

And then I totally caught my second wind. Between miles 18-20, the hills seemed so much easier. I passed so many people. At 20, I was still smiling and I knew that I was really going to do this.

That speaks volumes about your preparation, and your execution. Great job on your first marathon, I hope you recover quickly and well.

I ran it for the third time (FM in the 2007 heatstroke edition and HM in 2008)--I'd forgotten how hilly the course really is, more so than Mercedes, I thought, and that climb by Piedmont Park is rough for the FM runners. It was really crowded too, up until the course split I was continually boxed in trying to get past the slower runners who started up in the front Jen, if you do this again you can hang out in the Embassy Suites and use the rest rooms there, the lobby was full of runners keeping warm. And I agree about the wind--just when I felt warm I'd get a blast of wind and get cold again! I'd love to post a sign at the FM/HM split: SANITY CHECK <---pass fail---=""></---pass>

I thought the course was fair, but the condition of the roads in the city was/is terrible. Lots of potholes and ruts to get hurt in if you were running in a crowd. I didn't see any kids, but I did come up on a BUNCH of walkers finishing the half marathon. They seemed to like to walk 4-abreast and make us run around them. That was pretty annoying.

+1 on both counts. I saw a few runners step in cracks and fall.

I ran it for the third time (FM in the 2007 heatstroke edition and HM in 2008)--I'd forgotten how hilly the course really is, more so than Mercedes, I thought, and that climb by Piedmont Park is rough for the FM runners. It was really crowded too, up until the course split I was continually boxed in trying to get past the slower runners who started up in the front Jen, if you do this again you can hang out in the Embassy Suites and use the rest rooms there, the lobby was full of runners keeping warm. And I agree about the wind--just when I felt warm I'd get a blast of wind and get cold again! I'd love to post a sign at the FM/HM split: SANITY CHECK <---pass fail---=""></---pass>

Thanks for the tiP! I don't really think I'll be running this one again, though. Not just because of the kids marathon nonsense, but I just thought it was an expensive race for the lack of frills.

Actually, Gordon, that's a negative split. You ran a great race! Thanks for the report, jen. The kids would have bugged me for sure. The hills not as much. Have fun with the relay!

Doh! You're right. I'm so used to saying "negative split".

Reminds me of medical tests results. "They came back negative." (pause) "Wait. Is that the good one? Or the bad one? Oh! It's the good one. Phew!"