I can't tell you how immensely helpful it was to be running in a half-marathon where I live and on the same streets where I train everyday.
First off was waking up in my own bed and knowing I was only 20 minutes away from the starting line. In 1999, I drove more than three hours in the morning to run in the Seattle half-marathon, on a rain-filled, water-rutted Interstate 5. Not fun.
The only parts of the race I hadn't really run on were the last two miles of Peachtree and the first three miles to Little Five Points. And even then I've biked or driven those routes. As a result, I pretty much knew exactly where I was at any time.
When I got to really familiar ground (Virginia-Highland), it was really sweet. I knew that if things got real bad I could just ditch the race and hole up in my apartment. LOL.
But seriously, when I got to around mile 10 in Piedmont Park, I tricked myself into thinking that I was just doing a simple 4-mile training run.
My cross country coach in high school used to always stress it, but now I totally believe in the power of training on hills -- rolling hills and Cat. 1 monsters that you hit five miles into the run. Any fool can run on flat ground. When you come to a hill, you know immediately what you are made of.
One more good point for having the home-court advantage -- it didn't take too long for me to hobble home and shower, change clothes and then sit outside on my step, helping cheer on the marathon runners passing by.
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