Last Sunday, I ran in the Publix Half Marathon. It was great; I was very excited to see friends and to run this race. The flight from DC wasn’t expensive, and I stayed with friends so this ended up being a pretty easy trip. The biggest obstacle was probably getting breakfast on Saturday before the race. The olympic qualifier was going on, so the traffic was pretty intense.

On race day, I woke up around 5:30am, and ate half an apple. I was dropped off at CENTENNIAL OLYMPIC PARK around 6:15am. I thought it was nice this race had a Will Call option. For an extra $20, you could pick up your bib and t-shirt the morning of the race. I was a little nervous I wouldn’t be able to figure out where to find Will Call, but managed after a little searching. There were also a lot of porta potties. Anyone who has done one of these races before knows this can sometimes be an issue. Here they not only had them at the starting line, but they also had porta potties at several of the hydration stations for anyone that needed them. Before the race, they had some of the olympic qualifiers speak and motivate the runners, which I thought was nice. The morning of the race probably started in the low 50s. I wore a long sleeve, my hydration pack, and my HR monitor. I had a little trouble trying to find a place to store my gels and ended up shoving them in different parts of the hydration pack (the hydration pack does have a pocket, but it’s very difficult to reach while running.)

I thought my pace in the early part of the race was ok, but was surprised how early the mental fatigue started. Because last year, I was consistently running fairly long distances, I did not expect to have an issue, but this served as a reminder that I am out of practice. One of my major takeaways from this race is that it’s time to start consistently training again. The race itself was nice. Hydration stations were laid out about every two miles. I consumed gel packet at mile 4 and 9. I used the Wahoo Fitness app, which for some reason was way off. Somehow I was a whole mile ahead of the race mile markers by the end. There was solid crowd support, and I have to give props to Atlanta for being willing to host two major running events in the same weekend. I did not find the course to be too hilly, there were a couple of long gradual inclines that could be rough. This was also the first race where I stayed around the same people for a large duration of the entire run. My friends cheered me on at mile 10, which was great because at that point you kind of feel like you’re in the home stretch. I did feel pretty tired during that home stretch, which is another reason I really want to get back to training.

Overall, I was very happy with the result. I did fine for the start of the season, and this gave me the mental/motivational kick that I was hoping it would. I thought this event was very well organized, and I hope to run it again next year. A special thanks to my friends for hosting me. Below are a couple of pictures from my weekend.

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