Savannah Half Recap

The weekend started Friday morning as Cora and I kissed the kids and departed from my parent's house. A little over 3 hours later we arrived in Savannah and headed to the convention center and a parking nightmare. My only complaint about the entire weekend is packet pick-up.  The parking attendants didn't appear to be doing much in the way of coordinating traffic and it took about 15 minutes of circling before we found a spot.

Once we got into the convention center the process of actually picking up our bibs and bags was quite simple and efficient... until they forced us to route through the expo center to get out. The layout was too tight for the number of people and there was no clean way to get through the throngs of people browsing the over-priced gear (I can get better prices from my local running stores). Give us an option to exit without being subjected to the marketing BS and the experience is a pleasant one.

When we finally extricated ourselves from the maze of consumerism the trip to the house was a short one. The location was perfect, blocks from the start and finish, and we spent the rest of Friday strolling around Savannah.

Saturday morning was chilly and I got to the starting area early (as usual). I was in coral 1 behind the elites and was at the front. About 10 minutes or so before the start they moved everyone up and I found myself 2 rows back from the very front. I looked around and there were runners as far as I could see. Cool!

The start was a little odd, the gun was too silent and there was no real count down, but being up front made that a non-issue. From the beginning I could tell I was surrounded by sub 3:00 marathoners and I saw a few people from Charlotte (I don't know them, but I recognized the faces from other races). I stayed within site of them for the first mile or two and then let some space open up between myself and them. I was shooting for a 1:30 because I wanted to qualify for NYC but wasn't sure I'd hit it after my last marathon. I'd be close, but it was up in the air.

Around mile 3 or 4 I hooked up with 2 guys who were running the full and shooting for around 3:00 and I stayed with them, trading the lead, until the half split off around mile 11. One of the guys was wearing a Snickers Team Marathon jersey and that gave me a sense of comfort because I have a friend who runs for them and I LOVE their bars. My pace dropped a little when we split but I still felt really strong. I hadn't been paying much attention to splits or time but I felt like I was close to 1:30.

When I made the turn towards the finish I could see 1:29:19 on the clock and knew I had to kick hard. Somehow I dug out some sub-six speed for a bit and managed to cross the line in 1:29:54!!! A PR by nearly 5 minutes, 9th in my age group, and a NYC qualifier! Way more than I had thought I'd do!

Hats off to my coach, Mark Hadley, for the program he has put me on. I've put forth the same effort I did in 2010 but with dramatically different results!

When I got home and finally uploaded my data I had another shocker. I ran the most consistent splits I think I've ever done for that distance. Here they are:

mi Pace (min/mi)
1 6:47
2 6:50
3 6:43
4 6:48
5 6:48
6      6:45
7 6:52
8 6:51
9 6:47
10 6:53
11 7:03
12 6:55
13 7:04
14 6:49