Notes
I wanted to give you all an update on today's half marathon. It was a great race for me that was not only a PR for me, but a peak performance with an age-graded percentage of almost 81%, so it served as a great tune up as I enter the final weeks of training for the country music marathon.
The Tom King Classic 1/2 Marathon is always a fun race. It has a flat course that I train on frequently and every year brings out some great competition. It's an old-school runner's race with a starting and finish line and some water tables, but none of the silly hoopla that you see at more commercial races.
From the start, the lead was set by two runners: a small African man with an elite runner's build who I had seen warming up in a Kenyan windbreaker, and a local Knoxville runner that I have read about who ran for UT a decade ago and still turns in regular 1:09 halves. I was happy to let these two go ahead early, and they didn't disappoint, opening the race with early splits in the 5:10 range.
Behind them was a pack of two runners that I was not as sure about. They were both taller runners, one of whom probably stood four inches taller than me. They went out quickly but didn't look particularly comfortable doing so. Not knowing either of them, I thought there was a chance that these two might have pushed their pace a little too hard at first, and I was curious to see if they would come back in the later miles.
Then there was the chase pack. Three of us that settled into a 5:30 mile pace early and traded off leading and drafting off each other over the first few miles. I knew one of the other runners in this pack, a guy named Ben who does not live in Nashville but competes regularly in local races because he has a girl friend that lives here. I have raced him in 5k and 10ks and have been close behind him before, but have yet to beat him, so I know that he's a tough racer. The other member of this pack I didn't know, but he also looked comfortable in the early miles, including putting in a few surges to see how we would respond.
My early splits as we made our way from the Titans stadium along the flat road that heads south along the Cumberland river towards the Shelby Greenway were:
5:24 / 5:30 / 5:30 / 5:27 / 5:28 / 5:29.
Along the way, we started to reel in the two mystery runners ahead of us. They were 15 seconds ahead after the second mile, and that lead stayed static or diminished in the few miles that followed. As we passed miles 3 and 4, we all thought we would soon be passing them and leaving them to regret their fast early miles. Well, around mile 5, the taller of the two did fall back and we passed him quickly, but the other runner held onto his lead over us.
Mile 6 was the turnaround point, a hairpin turn on the trail that sent us back along the same path we came in on. As they passed me, I saw the two leaders looking strong way ahead of the rest of us. Behind them, #3 was starting to pick up his pace and was finally looking comfortable. I didn't know at the point who he was, but when I found out his name later, I realized that he is a local runner name Chris Herren that has run a few marathons in the low 2:30s recently, so he was ready to race. This is when the other members of the chase pack started to pull away from me. They were our for that number three spot, and the 5:30 miles were starting to feel a little too quick for me to hold. From that point on, I was on my own.
I could see the chase pack ahead as they built up a lead to just over a minute on me in the coming miles. As much as I had wanted to run a negative race, it had just made sense to try and stay with the competition. The only way I would have placed higher was but starting as I did and holding on, and I gave that a shot. Behind me, there was no one to catch up. So as the pace started to slip a little, the goal was just to continue to hold on for a strong finish, and I was able to do that, letting the pace not fall too much. Miles 7-13.1 were:
5:39 / 5:40 / 5:43 / 5:45 / 5:43 / 5:43 / 5:28 (+:41 for .1)
In the end, the Ken