More Golf Carts Per Capita
This morning I had the pleasure of participating in the Peachtree City Classic, running a 15K. Peachtree City, Georgia is perhaps one of the most unique cities in the country in that the entire city is connected by golf cart paths. Residents of Peachtree City traverse their fair town via golf carts to each other's houses, the grocery store and even to local fast food venues. There is something charming about this idea and strange as well. Much of the 15K was spent on these cart paths which in some cases were the dividing line between two neighborhoods as two sets of backyards back up to the cart path. These paths go everywhere; tunneling under roads and bridging over larger highways.
As the race time approached I worked down to the starting area and chose a sufficient spot to line up. Lining up is always such a quandary in trying to guess if the people around you will probably run around the same pace or not. The race started without a gun that I heard and the mass of people lurched forward. I was relying on the Garmin Forerunner for pacing. When the pack finally thinned and got into a groove, Garmin said I was at 7:57 pace - a bit fast. However, I crossed the first mile marker at about 8:26 or so. The race was chip timed and there was a delay crossing the start line. I had hoped to maintain around 8:20 miles for this race, so I figured I was on track. About a half mile or so later we turned off the roads and onto the cart paths. The remainder of the race was spent on the twisting, turning, tunneling paths. Through the tunnels vision was obscured to a minimum by the tunnels' length and width; only the literal "light at the end of the tunnel" served as a guide. Needless to say, with the tree cover and the tunnels, the Garmin was completely useless. I just ran by feel and listened out for the splits. By mile three I knew I was running slower than I wanted, but I just stayed with a consistent pace. Along the way I was inspired by a woman I dubbed "Rockin' Granny" who was cruising ahead of me for about a mile or so. She had to be in her 60s I thought. Eventually I passed Granny, but as it comes to pass, she was 68 years old and finished somewhere not too far behind me. While one could certainly assess this occurrence as a testament to my slowness, I prefer to think about it as how awesome this woman is to be cruising along at 68.
I forgot to hit my watch at the end of the race, but the clock time was somewhere around 1:19 something or other. The Peachtree City running club had the results posted fairly quickly on their web site, revealing a chip time of 1:18:45. I'll admit to being somewhat discouraged with my time. I had a lower goal set that would align well with my goal marathon time (which I had decided would be 3:55). I wonder if I would have run better on a course that was less twisty and turny than the golf carts. Nonetheless, the Peachtree City folks put on a great event. Each of the bibs for the pre-registered runners had the individuals' name printed on them so that people could say, "Good Job, Runninchick." The shirts were a nice long sleeve technical fabric with an embroidered race logo. Definitely a race that I'd do again, if nothing else to just gaze at the spectacle of this interesting "city."
As the race time approached I worked down to the starting area and chose a sufficient spot to line up. Lining up is always such a quandary in trying to guess if the people around you will probably run around the same pace or not. The race started without a gun that I heard and the mass of people lurched forward. I was relying on the Garmin Forerunner for pacing. When the pack finally thinned and got into a groove, Garmin said I was at 7:57 pace - a bit fast. However, I crossed the first mile marker at about 8:26 or so. The race was chip timed and there was a delay crossing the start line. I had hoped to maintain around 8:20 miles for this race, so I figured I was on track. About a half mile or so later we turned off the roads and onto the cart paths. The remainder of the race was spent on the twisting, turning, tunneling paths. Through the tunnels vision was obscured to a minimum by the tunnels' length and width; only the literal "light at the end of the tunnel" served as a guide. Needless to say, with the tree cover and the tunnels, the Garmin was completely useless. I just ran by feel and listened out for the splits. By mile three I knew I was running slower than I wanted, but I just stayed with a consistent pace. Along the way I was inspired by a woman I dubbed "Rockin' Granny" who was cruising ahead of me for about a mile or so. She had to be in her 60s I thought. Eventually I passed Granny, but as it comes to pass, she was 68 years old and finished somewhere not too far behind me. While one could certainly assess this occurrence as a testament to my slowness, I prefer to think about it as how awesome this woman is to be cruising along at 68.
I forgot to hit my watch at the end of the race, but the clock time was somewhere around 1:19 something or other. The Peachtree City running club had the results posted fairly quickly on their web site, revealing a chip time of 1:18:45. I'll admit to being somewhat discouraged with my time. I had a lower goal set that would align well with my goal marathon time (which I had decided would be 3:55). I wonder if I would have run better on a course that was less twisty and turny than the golf carts. Nonetheless, the Peachtree City folks put on a great event. Each of the bibs for the pre-registered runners had the individuals' name printed on them so that people could say, "Good Job, Runninchick." The shirts were a nice long sleeve technical fabric with an embroidered race logo. Definitely a race that I'd do again, if nothing else to just gaze at the spectacle of this interesting "city."
posted by runninchick at 7:20 PM
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