I just cross the hill at Ellis and the finish line is in sight. I look down at my watch -- it says 1:59:24 -- there are 36 seconds until the 2-hour mark and I don't know exactly how far away the end is.
"This is going to be a photo finish," I say out loud as I ramp up the final kick, mimicking Colonel Tai as Galactica prepared to escape a star turning supernova earlier this season.
This was a race I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I knew I would finish -- I have plenty of experience at the half and even one time -- eight years ago, in the Centralia, Wash.- 1/2 marathon, I finished it even though the longest practice run I did at the time was 4 miles. I really bonked at mile 10 and it was a painful 5K at the end.
I woke up late, missing my first alarm clock, and only waking up to my runner's watch alarm.
Then I couldn't find one of my shoes. It was left in the other room.
And so on and so on. I parked at work, chatted with Dorie for a while (gave her the Banana Nut Clif bar sample I got from the expo) and then wandered down the street.
They made you wind behind Five Points station back around to Decatur street where lots of people were waiting in line. I listened to my iPod for a while and then around 7:11 a.m. the line started to move.
At 7:14 a.m. we were at the Peachtree Street corner and then we were off. As usual, my calves really felt tight and I tried to "unlock" them as best I could. We climbed up Edgewood and eventually turned up Auburn to go past the Martin Luther King Jr. site.
I was going pretty good up Euclid in Little Five Points at the 1/2 marathon/marathon split (I really would have loved tackling the L3 hill that's part of my normal course in this race, but it was only for the full marathon).
The most challenging part of the race was Freedom Parkway. Of course, I had never run on it before and so I expected it to be hilly like the PATH trail that parallels it. But it turned out that instead of a first hill on the PATH, the parkway is cut lower. I totally took this hill and I almost felt like I was running too fast because I was dropping lots of people. Lament of a hill runner! My 10K split time was about 57 minutes.
At Boulevard, the course turned on the other side of the parkway back toward Ponce, where we ran up a HUGE hill that fortunately turned right before the Highland intersection. We joined Highland at St. Charles, and since this is my 'hood, it was awesome.
This was the first place that I took water, by the CVS, but it was in a frickin' bottle. I don't think they had Powerade the entire race -- I looked for it and would have stopped for some but did NOT want water. So I only had water one time during the entire race. (My 7-mile Middlebear H Loop routes are generally done without water, so I felt fine with that).
I held it for a while, not knowing what exactly to do with it -- I only had a few sips of it and I didn't want to waste it but I wasn't going to carry it either. So when I passed my apartment before the Virgnia-Highland intersection, I just ran up to my yard and dropped it in the mailbox!! And continued on.
There was a great girl band playing at the Va-Hi intersection and even though it was mile 8 and more than I've run recently, I knew at that point I would finish the race.
We ducked into Piedmont Park and then east up 10th Street to Piedmont, which is a nice little jog up a hill itself. Then up to 14th Street, but cutting to a hairpin on Juniper which made little sense to me. I would have much rather had them continue the course straight up the 14th Street hill and add on during Piedmont Park. I bet a bunch of people lost a few seconds at that hairpin.
On Peachtree, some lady said it was 2.2 miles to go. There's a little bit of a hill between 10th Street and, say, 4th Street. I already knew of the hill between Baker and Ellis, the last hill of the race and the last one I was worried about.
Going up this hill, I couldn't find any good song on my iPod. I kept saying 'No,' and "No."
Finally I found "Green Hornet," from the Kill Bill soundtrack, played at the part where Uma Thurman is walking through the Tokyo airport.
I was at full bore and the time was ticking down. At the very end, near the finish line, two girls joined me and we were going pretty frickin' fast. I stepped on the line.
It was exactly two hours, much better than my estimate of 2:05 and better than every half marathon I've run except my very first, 1:47:30.
I didn't bonk at all and totally ran strong. And I was happy I only had to train half as much as I probably should have!!!
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