Hotlanta Half Race Report

As advertised and expected, this race was warm, and the 7:30 start did not help matters.  I really wish they had gone with a 7:00 start to give the runners a little more time away from the sun, but you run with the hand you are dealt.

I got up at the early hour of 5:00, packed up all my stuff and headed for downtown Atlanta.  I got there a lot quicker than I thought and was surprised at the number of people who were already in the parking deck over an hour before the start.

I made my way to Underground Atlanta, which is where the race was starting.  About 45 minutes before race time I ate my Clif Bar, drank some Powerade and started to warm up.  It was not as warm as it could be for this time of year, but I knew from training runs that I was facing an uphill battle with the humidity.

The race started right on time, and the first few miles went really well.  I was right under the 10 minute/mile pace I had set for myself.  This probably had something to do with a few good downhill stretches this first few miles.  Then at mile 4, the hills started, and in the humidity, nothing drains you quicker than the hills.

Miles 5-7 brought a brief respite from the hills as they were on the pretty flat Atlanta Beltline Trail.  However, upon exiting this section, the long, slow climb up to Piedmont Park began, and this hill was tough.  I was glad to finally enter Piedmont Park for another flat stretch.  This was short lived as when we exited Piedmont, another long uphill climb awaited for mile 9-10.  At this point, I needed to take short walking breaks, and I was pouring water over my head at every water stop.  Anything I could do to stay cool was being done.

While there were still hills between miles 11 and 13, nothing compared to what had come before it.  Turning left for the final stretch, I could see the finish line, and it was up a final 2/10 of a mile hill.  I powered up this final stretch to finish in 2:25:59.  No where near what I want to do, and a good 13 minutes over my PR time.


I will say that the race was very well organized and went very smoothly.  I do not think I would do it again as all those hills in the heat are just not fun.  After all the training I did, I feel fairly confident I would have pulled off a PR under good racing conditions.  This was far from it.

Time to move onto the next challenge and race, which will probably be the Goofy Challenge in January.  While I would like to get in one more race before the proof of time date Disney has in place, right now, I am not sure if my schedule and the kids schedules will allow for that.

It's Going to be Hot!!

Well, so much for the mild summer.  After having very few hot and humid days above 90 for the past two months, Mother Nature has decided to throw a heat wave at us.  This just in time for the Hotlanta Half on Sunday.  It should make for a very interesting race.  At the moment, it looks like the temperature will be a balmy 75 when the race starts at 7:30am.

As for my race plan, I have no idea what I am going to do.  I have trained pretty hard the past few months, and part of me at least wants to try to go for a PR.  Why waste all that training time?  However, I am not sure how realistic a thought that even is because humidity is not my friend.

What I do not want to do is come out of the gate too quickly and burn myself out before I get to the halfway point.  If there was ever a time for a steady pace early on, this is it.  Try to keep the pace I want for the first half of the race, and then see what happens from there.

The Training Continues

With less than four weeks to go before the Hotlanta Half Marathon, I have been pushing through the training during these summer months.  Thankfully the summer has been quite mild compared to past summers.

A couple weeks ago, I had a great 11 mile long run after walking around the local Six Flags park the day before.  Early morning temperatures were in the low 60s, which made for a pleasant run.

Compare that to last week when the early morning temperature was above 70, and the humidity was well over 80%.  I had the worst run of the whole summer where I needed to take a few brief walking breaks here and there on a 12 mile run, and finished with the worst long run time of the summer.  Humidity is just not my friend in any sense of the word.

What all this means for the race in four weeks time is that until I know what the weather is going to be on that morning, I have no clue what my strategy will be or how I will finish.  I know I have put in all the training, but most of that goes out the door if the conditions are hot and humid.  If I get lucky enough to get one of these cool mornings then my goal or at least a PR is within reach.

Regardless of the outcome of the race at the very least I have the foundation laid to jump right into Goofy training on September 21.  I'll just need to maintain for a couple of weeks, and then hit the ground running for what will be a tough three months of training.

10 K Goal Accomplished

July 4 was the We the Runners 10K on the Big Creek Greenway.  Back when I started this latest training cycle for the Hotlanta Half Marathon next month, I set a goal of finishing this race in under an hour.  I figured if I could do that then I would know that training was where it probably should be.

I will say that the weather on July 4 was nothing like your typical July 4 in Cumming, Georgia.  The temperature at the start was only 61, and the humidity was not bad either.

What this good weather allowed Karen and I to do was come out the gate flying.  I turned a mile 1 pace of 9:03, which is the fastest mile I have ran in any race.  From there I ran every mile at a less than 10 minute pace.  End result was a finish time of 57:43.  This time was 13 minutes faster than my previous official 10K pace.  Nothing to complain about with this time.

However, I am fairly certain that had there been normal July 4 weather, the pace I ran would have been much tougher to accomplish.  I am under no illusions that the August 24 race in downtown Atlanta will be an easy affair.  I have 6 full weeks of training remaining before the taper week, which should give me a chance to train some more in high humidity mornings.

In regards to the race itself.  The We the Runners 10K was very well put together by Zulu Racing.  It was a much more relaxed and laid back alternative to the Peachtree Road Race, and the start/finish was only 10 minutes from my house, which allowed us to sleep in later on July 4.  Not a bad way to spend July 4 morning.

A Fun Run in Paris

Karen and I went to Paris at the end of May.  We figured that no trip would be complete without a fun little run along through Paris along the Seine.

We could not have asked for a more perfect morning, and there were many other runners out along the same route.  I will say that I do not know how those people do it day after day.  We were both worried about rolling an ankle on the many cobblestone parts of the route we ran.  Needless to say, our pace was not the best that morning.  Of course, the large amount of wine we consumed might have also had something to do with that.  :)

It was a great run and certainly one of the highlights of our trip.

Halfway point at the Eiffel Tower

At the Orsay

  

Run Faster to Run Faster

One thing I read on a regular basis is that if you want to run faster, you need to run faster.  Makes sense.  Adding in tempo runs and speed work will work wonders for your speed.

As I continue with what I like to call my pre-training for the Hotlanta Half in August, this has become quite evident.  My race training plan does not officially start until I get back from vacation in the first week of June, but I have been working on tempo runs and speed work at least once a week on a treadmill for the past couple months.  Pre-training to me is getting myself in the best shape possible to begin the full training I will need to do for that half marathon, which will in turn have me ready to start Goofy training in September.

Anyway, back to running faster.  What I have seen is the times on my long run gradually decreasing to the point that my average pace was below a 10 minute mile for the first time ever last Friday.  For these long runs I do not even look at my watch until I know I am well past the halfway point.  I go with what feels right that day.  End result is that I am not pushing myself to make a better time each week.  It is just happening naturally, which to me is how it should be.

What I am going to be curious to see is what happens to these times as the temperatures on long run mornings start to get warmer each week.  Will I struggle more to keep up the good pace, or will the increased speed training compensate to keep me going at a good pace?

There is a 10K on July 4 morning on the Big Creek Greenway what Karen and I might sign up for.  That should be nice and hot to offer a good test to see if I can keep up a good pace for 6.2 miles.  My goal pace for that race right now would be a 9:30 mile with a finish in under 60 minutes.  With where I am right now, I am confident I am within striking distance of that.  Time will tell.

An Experiment of One

Since the Disney Wine & Dine Half was my first race, i discovered the running board on a popular Disney message board.  If you have never been to the DisBoards, then this is a great place to go.  They not only talk Disney races, but discuss other running related things as well.  There are all sorts of people on this board.  First time runners, runners like myself who have just gotten into it recently and running coaches.

Every time a topic comes up about how to hydrate for a race, fuel for a race or pace a race, his comment is always "each of us is an experiment of one".  What this means is that what works for one person might not work for another.  Some people can run with very little fuel, some need fuel more often than others, and the type of food each person can handle might be different.

I can say that I have tried all sorts of combinations over the past two years.  Started out with the energy beans and Gatorade.  I then moved onto energy chews and watered down Powerade, but I just did not feel like that was really doing it for me either.

My current long run regimen goes something like this.  For the record, I have a fuel belt with four 8 oz bottles that comes along for the run.

• Chocolate chip Clif bar and half a glass of Powerade about 30 minutes before heading out
• For the first four miles, I only drink water each 1.5 miles
• At mile 4, I take a strawberry/caffeine Clif Shot Gel washed down with some water
• After this I alternate water and non-watered down Powerade every 1-1.5 miles
• I'll continue with he gels every 3-4 miles, and if I am within four miles of finishing my run I take nothing.
• When I finally finish my run, there is nothing better than a big, cold glass of chocolate milk.

I only follow this if my long run is 10 or more miles.  I ran 7 miles this morning and only took along my water and Powerade.  If I had been running 10 miles, I would have taken one gel at mile 4, and then only water and Powerade after that.

I will say that the gels took some getting use to, but they have grown on me over the past few weeks.  However, this regimen seems to be working for me at the moment, and I will be sticking with it through my summer training.

Officially Goofy in 2015

As noon approached yesterday, I wondered if their would be a rush on the RunDisney website to get registered for Disney Marathon weeks.  After all, the last couple races sold out in only a couple of hours.  turns out there was no need to worry.  I was in shortly after noon and fully registered 15 minutes later for the 10th Goofy Challenge.

Even though my official training plan does not begin until September, all the hard training I am going to do for the Hotlanta Half in August is going to be in preparation for the Goofy training.  Essentially I plan on hitting the ground running in September and train hard through the end of December.

I have to say that I am looking forward to getting my hands on this come January 11, 2015

Wet, Muddy and Humid (Georgia Peach Jam Report)

The Georgia Peach Jam Half Marathon was yesterday, and the words for the day were wet, muddy and humid.  What was supposed to be a perfect weather weekend for running went south very quickly as rain moved in overnight on Friday.

The race was held on the Big Creek Greenway, which is a very nice area to run when it has not rained overnight.  There are many spots where it just does not drain well.  While the rain stopped right before the race kicked off, there was still standing water all over the course.  What this meant was that runners needed to navigate around the water, which meant running onto the grass at many points.  This resulted is shoes and legs covered in mud very early on, and wet shoes throughout the race.

I started out the race pretty good. I was under a ten minute mile at the 3 mile mark.  This is where I could really tell that the tempo/pace runs I have been doing for the past six weeks had really helped.  If I could keep up that pace I was easily on my way to a PR.  This was not to be.  As I have found out in a couple of previous races, humidity is just not my friend.  By about the halfway point of the race, I was starting to feel it.  This was also the point where my wife, Karen, blew on by me.  I could see her up ahead for a little while, but soon lost sight of her.  She was gone.

My wet shoes and I trudged on through the last half of the race, and I finished with a time of 2:17:35.  That's about four minutes slower than my PR.  I was also thankful that Dirty Spokes might have measured the course slightly short.  I have a Garmin and Karen uses the Nike IPhone app.  Both showed the distance we ran at 12.9 miles.  I have never had that happen in a race before.  If anything it is usually a little longer than 13.1 due to having to weave around people.

So it's onto the next challenge now.  The local 10K on July 4 followed by the Hotlanta Half in August.

Game On..Again

Well, after being doubtful of the whole waiting list for the Georgia Peach Jam Half Marathon next week, I receive an email this morning letting me know that both Karen and I can now register for the race.  Registration is due by Wednesday by snail mail, so off it will go in today's mail.

Good thing I did not slack on any training for the past couple of weeks.  While a PR is probably not going to happen this time around, I certainly think I can run a respectable time on what will be a completely flat course.

New Plans

Well so much for that idea.  My wife and I were all ready to register for the Georgia Peach Jam Half Marathon next month only to find out that it has sold out.  I emailed the race contact to confirm that it was indeed sold out, and apparently there is a waiting list.  This is the first time I have ever heard of a waiting list for any race.  So I guess there is still a sliver of hope to run in an official race next month.

Yesterday I started looking around to see what other half marathons might be available to run.  I came across the inaugural Hotlanta Half Marathon.  Sounded pretty good to me.  The catch.  It's on August 24 at 7:30am.  Hotlanta indeed.  That would be one hot and challenging race at that time of year.  However, it gives me something to focus on throughout the summer, which is what I need to stay in shape ahead of Goofy training which kicks off in September.  I signed up this afternoon, so I am committed to it now.

Thinking ahead to a Goofy time

Thus far, there is only one half marathon that I am looking to put on my calendar, and that would be one on April 19. A very flat run on the local greenway, which should make for a pretty easy race. As such, I am doing minimal training at the moment and only running 20-25 miles a week.

However, I am very much looking ahead to the Disney Goofy Challenge in January 2015. I want to push myself a little more, and figured this was a fun event to do it in. A half marathon on Saturday followed by a full marathon on Sunday. Registration does not even open for another month, but I am already tinkering with training plans that I would not even start with until September. I figure that it never hurts to plan ahead in order to know what I will face. Training to run 39.3 miles over two days will be no easy task, but in a crazy sort of way I am looking forward to it.

Until such time, it will be pretty much maintenance running over the hot summer months at about 20 miles per week. My schedule will be on short run, one tempo run, and one long run per week to hold me at that 20 miles. Near the end of the summer I will gradually start increasing things so that I can jump right into my Goofy training come September.

Two years and running

Almost two years ago to the day, I started running after not doing anything resembling that for over 15 years.  I decided one day that I wanted to run a half marathon and that the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon would be a good way to start.  My wife decided that she would join me in this little adventure as well.

So began seven months of training that included running a 5K and a 10K in what was the biggest heat wave to hit Atlanta in years.  It all culminated with the Wine & Dine Half in November 2012.

While I did not finish my first race in the time I wanted to and was miserable due to running on some shoes I should have traded out long ago, I was sufficiently hooked.  I needed to get back out there and do better.

So began a series of races throughout 2013 where I was able to decrease my half marathon PR two times. When I started running again, I always said that the half marathon distance was enough for me.  Well that was thrown out the door after running my second half marathon last year.  Why not go for the full distance?  So my wife and I signed up for 2014 Disney Marathon.

It was hard and time consuming training.  However, we successfully finished our first marathon.  As with my first half marathon, I did not finish this first race in nearly the time I wanted to, but I did learn a lot of things.  Things that will be very helpful in training for future races.