Peachtree Road Race Report
The much anticipated ginormous 10K has come and gone with much fanfare and glory. Here's how it went down for me.
My good friend and running buddy came down with her husband to run the Peachtree Road Race with me. We had a great weekend of fun together. The race went down like this:
We set several alarms, with running buddy's to be the first to go off at 5:00 a.m. to prepare for the 7:30 a.m. start time. My running buddy woke me up shortly there after, allowing me to shut off the two back up alarms I had set. We sat for a while in the morning quiet, and then finally ate a Powerbar and some Gatorade. After scurrying around a bit more than I would have liked, Running Buddy's husband took us to the train station at around 6:20 a.m. or so. Although it was only one stop to the race start, I was nervous nonetheless. When the train arrived at the platform, it was completely packed. There didn't appear to be one iota of room left, but we were assertive and made people squeeze so that we could fit. One stop later, a mass of runners oozed out of the train and proceeded to the starting area.
We headed towards our corral area and the portajohns for our timegroup, 1A. The Peachtree Road Race organizes corrals by seeding from the elites to anyone who submits a time under 54:99. Only these people receive timing chips. The remaining timegroups 2-9 are mostly assigned randomly and do not receive chips. One of the drawbacks to being in the upper timegroup is that unlike the other groups, you share a mass of portajohns with everyone. There was a mass of confusion around the portajohns as there were two rows facing each other. Long lines spanned the parking lot for one set facing one direction, while the other direction had virtually no line, but the lines for these johns are largely inaccessible. We struggled our way to a short line and were in and out while others waited in the snaking lines.
After a five minute warm up and some stretching, we made our way to our starting corral to await the race start. After several minutes of waiting, I never heard a gun go off, but rather the mass of people started to stream forward. As the race got underway, I was surprised by how slowly the crowd moved despite the fact that the people in the timegroup had to qualify in decent times to be admitted. Not only were we confronted by the challenges of speed, but also the horrible stench of some people's body odor and slow people crawling on the left hand side. The crowd finally thinned after around a mile or so to lend a bit of breathing room.
I had a good three miles at the start with times under 8:00 miles. The infamous hills on the course start just after mile three, at which point I slowed down by nearly :30 per mile. The finish time was worthy of our time group with a chip time of 49:57. Running buddy and I finished with the exact same time.
My MAJOR bummer of the week was that on Sunday my Garmin Forerunner 201 somehow got possessed by some evil spirit. During a nice morning run, the Garmin started turning off and on by itself. It continued to turn off and on all day long until the battery finally ran out. I've written Garmin to see if it can be fixed, but I'm also considering investing in something more trouble-free given that I'm on my second Forerunner in a year's time. Six months doesn't seem like a good life for this product. If anyone can suggest something that works better, please leave me a comment.
I'm getting ready to start training for the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon which takes place on November 12. This coming Monday I'll embark on the Pfitzinger 18/55 program. I'm really hoping to work hard and shave off some minutes. This week, I hope to get around 34 miles in.
My good friend and running buddy came down with her husband to run the Peachtree Road Race with me. We had a great weekend of fun together. The race went down like this:
We set several alarms, with running buddy's to be the first to go off at 5:00 a.m. to prepare for the 7:30 a.m. start time. My running buddy woke me up shortly there after, allowing me to shut off the two back up alarms I had set. We sat for a while in the morning quiet, and then finally ate a Powerbar and some Gatorade. After scurrying around a bit more than I would have liked, Running Buddy's husband took us to the train station at around 6:20 a.m. or so. Although it was only one stop to the race start, I was nervous nonetheless. When the train arrived at the platform, it was completely packed. There didn't appear to be one iota of room left, but we were assertive and made people squeeze so that we could fit. One stop later, a mass of runners oozed out of the train and proceeded to the starting area.
We headed towards our corral area and the portajohns for our timegroup, 1A. The Peachtree Road Race organizes corrals by seeding from the elites to anyone who submits a time under 54:99. Only these people receive timing chips. The remaining timegroups 2-9 are mostly assigned randomly and do not receive chips. One of the drawbacks to being in the upper timegroup is that unlike the other groups, you share a mass of portajohns with everyone. There was a mass of confusion around the portajohns as there were two rows facing each other. Long lines spanned the parking lot for one set facing one direction, while the other direction had virtually no line, but the lines for these johns are largely inaccessible. We struggled our way to a short line and were in and out while others waited in the snaking lines.
After a five minute warm up and some stretching, we made our way to our starting corral to await the race start. After several minutes of waiting, I never heard a gun go off, but rather the mass of people started to stream forward. As the race got underway, I was surprised by how slowly the crowd moved despite the fact that the people in the timegroup had to qualify in decent times to be admitted. Not only were we confronted by the challenges of speed, but also the horrible stench of some people's body odor and slow people crawling on the left hand side. The crowd finally thinned after around a mile or so to lend a bit of breathing room.
I had a good three miles at the start with times under 8:00 miles. The infamous hills on the course start just after mile three, at which point I slowed down by nearly :30 per mile. The finish time was worthy of our time group with a chip time of 49:57. Running buddy and I finished with the exact same time.
My MAJOR bummer of the week was that on Sunday my Garmin Forerunner 201 somehow got possessed by some evil spirit. During a nice morning run, the Garmin started turning off and on by itself. It continued to turn off and on all day long until the battery finally ran out. I've written Garmin to see if it can be fixed, but I'm also considering investing in something more trouble-free given that I'm on my second Forerunner in a year's time. Six months doesn't seem like a good life for this product. If anyone can suggest something that works better, please leave me a comment.
I'm getting ready to start training for the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon which takes place on November 12. This coming Monday I'll embark on the Pfitzinger 18/55 program. I'm really hoping to work hard and shave off some minutes. This week, I hope to get around 34 miles in.
posted by runninchick at 7:38 PM
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