This past weekend I ran the “I Run For the Party Half Marathon”, also known as the Nashville Half. It is a smaller marathon with about 1400 running the half and 400 or so actually doing the whole marathon. There is also a 5K as well. It is my second year doing this race. It starts right in front of the Hard Rock Cafe, which I like. There’s a lot of cool scenery down at the end of Broadway. One of the main reasons I decided to do this race is because it is good pace training for the Memphis full I have coming up December 6th. I had been on the fence about it, but when my friend Ashley agreed to sign up I was sold!
The weather was chilly, only about 35 degrees to start out, which is good. I actually got a little hot because the sun was so hot in the middle! I will take cold weather any day! The beginning of the course was a little hilly then it flattened out for most of the middle. I will say though that I was not a fan of the big hill at mile 12. I’m pretty sure I added a minute on I my time. There wasn’t a lot of spectators which I expected but it does remind me of the importance of spectators at a race. They motivate me and that just wasn’t happening here. It reminds me how much I love high energy races like Chicago or even the Country Music.
So last year when I ran this race, several of us felt according to our apps and GPS’s that the course was a little short, possibly .2-.3 miles. This year several of us clocked it a tiny bit over, maybe .13 or so. So for two years it just hasn’t seemed totally accurate which bothers me a bit, but not the end of the world. I wore my Brooks Glycerin which I absolutely love, and my favorite Asics Capris (I swear I could live in them!) I also wore my all-time favorite Asics half zip with a Nike dri-FIT tank underneath.
Let me mention one thing that annoys me about races, the fact that sometimes the shirts just don’t fit right! I love race shirts and to be honest, the shirts and the post-race food are partly what I judge a good race by! Here is a perfect example. Last year the shirts were pretty small, both tight and short in length (short shirts are a pet peeve of mine.) This year all of the shirts were men’s sizes so they were loose and big. It’s kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it’s hard to find the race shirt that fits just right! They are a very cool blue which I like, so I guess that’s the silver lining! Some of the race shirts I have gotten have been so tight that I have passed them down to my daughters!
I’m All About That Pace
So, I mentioned that I wanted to do this race to help pace me for my full. Typically In a full marathon my second half is way slower than my first, which is normal, although I have been working to narrow the gap. In my training runs I tend to get faster as my miles increase for about the first half. But in my races I am always way faster in the beginning. So this time I tried to hold back a little in the beginning of this half. I have now decided that for me that doesn’t seem to work very well. So I am going to stick with the way an old manager in Atlanta taught me. I look to my first half as saving time in my time bank. So for example if I want my overall pace to be an 8 for 26.2 miles, but I run 13 miles at a 7:30, that’s 6 and a half minutes in my time bank for me to slow down in the second half. I ended up running a 1:38 which isn’t my best or worst, but won me first place in my age group and put me as the 9th overall female. (This was the day after my birthday too so it was my first race as a 37 year old….ugh!)
I did pay a visit to the Franklin Massage tent and got a quick table massage which was pretty fantastic in a painful way. Wow there was some sore spots! The post-race food was just ehh…protein bars and fruit. However I was a little too chilly to eat anyway. Overall it was a good race, not a favorite but it falls at a good time in my training for the Memphis. So December 6th I will be running 26.2 miles for St. Jude’s, and more specifically for 3 year old Hope Reynolds. I am giving until end of the day on December 7th for people to donate! Any donation at all will enter you in the drawing for a $100 Sport Seasons gift card, just in time for the holidays! So please consider helping to give help for Hope this season!
