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| It only took a second but I outkicked a guy who passed me at Mile 3 in the last four seconds of my race. |
So I eagerly signed up for a few races during this "downtime" before the training cycle for next year's Revel Mt. Charleston Marathon begins. One reason is to hopefully get a fresh qualifying time for Group A of the Peachtree Road Race (I've been using my 1:39:14 time from Boston's Run to Remember half marathon the last two years).
This race, the Run Like Hell 5K, seemed like a great warmup. It was one of the first races I ran in Atlanta when I moved here 15 years ago. The race is not in my scrapbook but I think I might have run it in 24:30 or so.
It starts and ends in the historic Oakland Cemetery and later the race director announced that it is now the largest race in a cemetery in the world. The route empties out on Memorial Drive along the Memorial Drive Greenway and then turns on Capitol Drive before returning to the cemetery via Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. I guess I should have known better but I didn't realize it is full of rolling hills, especially inside the cemetery.
The race started with a swing of a golf club from an imitator of the famous golfer Bobby Jones, who rests in the cemetery. Then you go up a rise and then a slightly steep downhill to the first corner. It was here that I accidentally hit a guy who crossed in front of me in the back. "Sorry!" I called out. (I chased this 42-year-old guy the entire race and he ended up finishing first in our 40-49 age group in 22:10).
Then the course turns again and you go up a hill that reveals the finish, which is in front of the base of the Confederate Memorial Obelisk. But in the initial part of the race, the course turns away and winds around another hill before you are led out of the cemetery. After a straightaway and a short turn you turn onto Memorial Drive where Mile 1 is. I crossed here in 7:21.
The road rolls toward Capitol Avenue where there is another incline before you turn onto MLK Jr. Drive. Somewhere around the Interstate 85 overpass, a guy in a white T-shirt passed me and then, at least it seemed to me, kind of got in front of the track I was running and slowed down a little bit. I wasn't sure what this meant, so I tried to pay it no mind. I ended up passing him after Mile 2 (7:17) and then I mentally prepared myself for the last bit inside the cemetery.
There's an incline just after you enter the cemetery and then you get the incline that happens right after the race starts. On the downhill section (near where I clipped the guy I mentioned previously) I told myself to keep it steady, to not accelerate until/unless someone were to pass me on this section. That didn't happen and I was greeted with the final uphill past Mile 3 (7;21) and the finish.
With about a tenth of a mile left, the guy in the white T-shirt passed me on the uphill to the finish. I let him go by as we both passed a third guy who was working his way to the finish. Then I realized as we were really close to the finish that I was kicking faster than the white T-shirt guy, and he was riding the middle lane just as he was in Mile 2.
A series of 14 pictures (I bought and posted the one above) taken from the finish line gun camera captures the sequence pretty well. In the last four seconds of my race, I come up alongside of him and in a second I've broken free of the white T-shirt guy to finish in 21st place overall (of about 1,222 people). My 22:34 time is basically what I typically run in a race with a bunch of rolling hills. I hadn't done much speed work since the Berlin Marathon and really looked at this race like a baseline.
But I was happy to have taken second place in my age group -- when you are in the latter part of a 10-year age group it's hard to beat guys whose age is in the first half of it. I'm also glad I had something left for the finish.
Time: 9 a.m.
Temp: about 60 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, short (Publix Georgia Half Marathon), shorts, Saucony Type A6, Stryd footpod sensor, Headsweats visor, goodr sunglasses.
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