With the final long run behind me before the Knoxville Marathon, the mileage starts to go down for the next couple of weeks.  This week’s total was about 25 miles, including over 6 miles of interval training, a 5-mile tempo run, and a long run of about 13 miles.  Once again, cross-training consisted of a spin class on Monday and Wednesday.

The weather for the long run on Saturday was miserable.  About 40 degrees and a constant rain.  I think that I only saw about 8 other people running for the entire two hours that I was out.  Fortunately, there was plenty of other stuff to look at.  Since this is the anniversary of the battle of Guilford Courthouse, there were people camping out for a historical reenactment along my normal route.  It turned out that the rain put a damper (emphasis on the ‘damp’) on their activities, so there were just a bunch of people in tights standing around campfires.  (As opposed to a guy in tights running around in the rain.)

In the end, it was a pretty gloomy run and one of those efforts that you simply work your way through.  The plan called for running at marathon pace.  While I was able to complete it in the target time, it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.

Favorite moment of the (long) run:  There wasn’t much that qualified, but one thing did make me smile.  It occurred when I stopped to look at a sign on a bright orange pole that had been installed for some reason right in the middle of the greenway.  As I paused in the pouring rain to try and decipher the smeared writing, I realized that it said “Wet Paint”.  Yeah, right.

Last Year's Race

Last week, I wrote up a description of the first third of my experience at last year’s marathon.  In general, I ran quite a bit faster during the initial part of the race than even my most optimistic pace.  This week, I’ll review the middle third from miles 10 to 18.

The course for mile 10 continues along the Third Creek Greenway.  Don’t expect a lot of crowd support in this stretch since you basically won’t see anyone but runners from the time you get on the greenway until you reach Tyson Park.  This section is pretty flat and I ended up running about 15 seconds faster for this mile than I should have.

Mile 11 takes you through Tyson Park, where there were quite a few people waiting to cheer the runners on.  It also contained the first water stop with energy gels.  If I had followed the recommendation on the packets, I would have already sucked up two of them by this point.  My recommendation - if you use them in your training and expect to use them in the race, I wouldn’t necessarily tie yourself down to their availability on the course.  After you get through Tyson Park and onto Cumberland, the elevation starts to change pretty quickly.

Mile 12 continues the elevation change as you run up into the Fort Sanders area.  I found it to be a pretty good challenge to maintain speed along this section and I passed several people who were struggling with the elevation as well.  In my case, I finally stopped running ahead of my “best case” pace and ran about a 10-minute mile.

In mile 13, the half-marathon runners split off to head to the stadium.  This transition was handled very well and there were plenty of volunteers to make sure everyone headed in the right direction.  There’s a slight downhill section as you head into the World’s Fair Park (make sure you strike a confident pose as you run past the photographer with the SunSphere in the background).  At this point, I started running near 2 guys who had Canadian flags painted all over them.  They were running with “Jenn” and yelled at anybody who listened that it was “Jenn’s first marathon!”.  This group was really fun to be near and got the crowd fired up as they passed.  Finished this mile about 6 seconds ahead of goal pace.

Mile 14 took us up Broadway and into the 4th & Gill neighborhood.  It was a little awkward getting stared at by all the people standing outside the Rescue Ministry as we ran past.  It seemed to put everything in perspective.  The 4th & Gill neighborhood was a lot of fun, though.  They turn the race into a big block party with a lot of encouraging attention directed at the runners.  Bananas, fruit, and water were available at the mile 14 marker.  Dropped 10 seconds off my goal pace for this mile.

The 4th & Gill neighborhood continued through the first part of mile 15 and there appeared to be quite a few adult beverages being consumed early on a Sunday morning.  The crowd support was great, though.  I think I even passed somebody in a chicken suit at some point.  After heading under the interstate, I hit the mile marker at 2 seconds under my goal pace.  It would be the last time that I was under my goal for the rest of the race.

Mile 16 had some rolling hills through a relatively industrial section of town until you got to Caswell Park.  You were exposed to a pretty strong wind at this point.  There was a woman in front of me wearing a jacket that inflated with air as we ran into the headwind.  Simply running was hard enough - I couldn’t imagine doing it with the parachute that she was wearing.  At this point, the runners were significantly spread out.  This section was a couple of seconds behind goal pace for me.

In mile 17, we made our way through the Parkridge neighborhood where there are some great old houses.  Once again, there was a lot of support from the neighborhood.  There were a few rolling hills and I was off my goal pace by 10 seconds.  This section was typical of the mileage at this point in the race – no significant challenges but just another mile to get through on your way to the tough part.

Mile 18 took us back through an industrial section of town and into the Old City.  The running wasn’t very difficult at this point, but I fell into a consistent pace about 10 seconds per mile less than my goal.  There was quite a crowd assembled in the Old City and it felt good to be headed into the final part of the race. 

With two-thirds of the race behind me, I was still about 30 seconds ahead of pace for my most optimistic finishing time.  But I had varied widely in my pace up to this point and had been anywhere from 30 seconds per mile ahead to 15 seconds per mile behind where I wanted to be.