It turned out this race was over for me before it began! I planned everything pretty well, I thought, until I took a slightly longer than usual warmup before the race start and found myself outside a crowded corral with two minutes before the race started, giving me little hope of a fast start that is crucial for a good 5K time.
In that moment I decided to wait with a bunch of people outside the corral and only was able to get in after the gun went off, maybe getting to the starting line about 45 seconds after. When I started running I was stuck behind the 9:30 minute/mile pacers for the 15K. I decided to just run when I could and just enjoy the race.
I finished the race in 23:04, losing about a minute in the congested first mile (the 5K and 15K racers share the road until the 5K split at about 1K into the race). My splits were 7:51/7:12/7:07 This actually could be a positive in that I need to make sure I get into the corral early when I am running in the Publix Georgia Half Marathon next month.
Here's some notes just for my own planning purposes in the future:
Getting There: Free street parking is really scarce downtown now. I drove around a bit and finally found a space on John Wesley Dobbs close to I-75/85. Gonna have to plan better for this next time.
Prerace: I walked up to the empty corral at 7 a.m., about 30 minutes before the race started. Since it was cold out I decided to walk toward Centennial Olympic Park and the portapotty lines when I remembered before last year's Publix half I went to the Omni for the restrooms and to shelter from the cold. This year I stayed in the lobby until 15 minutes before the race when I did my warmup.
Warmup: I wanted to see the last couple hundred meters before the finish but it meant running 1.08 miles, a little more than I would usually for a warmup. It was valuable to see this downhill finish but this got me to the corral just two minutes before race start and that meant having to wait in a line outside the crowded corral.
Gear: It was cold out (36 degrees at race start) but I wore too many layers for the race. I wore a Mizuno Breath Thermo layer under a technical T-shirt. Over that I had a throwaway long-sleeved technical T-shirt. But after Mile 2 I really wished I'd just worn the short sleeved tech shirt and obviously couldn't discard the under layer in the middle of the race.
Course: It is a little hilly, it had some screaming downhill but a half-mile incline that included a huge hill overpass with a half mile left in the race.
