We’re on the home stretch for the Knoxville Marathon.  Last week consisted of a little over 6 miles of interval training, an 8-mile tempo run, the final long run (about 22), and two days of spin class.  The weekly total was the highest of the program at about 36 miles.

I had a meeting at the church at 9am on Saturday and a full day of activities after that, so I had to finish the long run early.   Once again, I found myself on a treadmill at the gym at 5.  Six miles was all I could take before jumping in the car and driving to the local greenway to start the “real” run.

After a quick warmup, I stepped on the trail but quickly saw that the path was blocked by 3 deer.  I reached for the camera that I brought along, but all I got was a scene of where they were about 3 seconds ago.

As I continued up the path, I realized that they were running through the woods as well.  For a moment, I ran alongside them but they quickly left me behind and disappeared into the trees.
I then headed toward the lake as the sun came up and was greeted by the following sights:

I finished the run at about marathon pace + 15 seconds/mile and felt pretty good.  I hope that this bodes well for the race.

Favorite moment of the (long) run:  If I ignore the treadmill part, the whole run was great.  It was really impressive to watch the world come alive as the run progressed.  From the initial encounter with the deer, to the sunrise, to the first couple of people I came across, then a small running group, then a huge Team-in-Training group, it was like seeing the world wake up and shake off the darkness.

Last Year's Race
Since there are three weeks left, I’ll try to review my experience from last year in the remaining blog entries.  I have read that a marathon can be divided into three sections…  You run the first third with your head, the second third with your legs, and the final third with your heart.  I’ll divide my description up the same way.

The 2008 Knoxville Marathon was my first full marathon and there was apparently a lot to learn.  Specifically: when you’re told to “use your head” during the first part of the race, then that’s what you should do.  I didn’t, and I ended up paying for it later on.

I had three different goals for the race.  My first goal was to simply finish, regardless of the time.  I was pretty sure that I would I wouldn’t have any problem accomplishing this.  My second goal was a “realistic” finishing time of 4:22, or 10-minute miles.  Once again, I thought this was definitely achievable based on my training.  Finally, I had an “optimistic” goal of finishing in 4:18, or 9:50-minute miles.

So when the gun went off, I was planning to try and run consistently at a 9:50 pace and then fall back to the 10-minute pace if I needed to.  I felt a surge of adrenaline at the start, so I couldn’t figure out why I was struggling to keep up with my fall-back pace.  It turned out that in the dark, I couldn’t tell the difference on my watch between a “ten” minute-mile and an “eight” minute-mile.  It appears that a zero and an eight look very similar when you're not really paying attention.  Stupidly, I ran the first half-mile much faster than I should have.  Even more stupidly, I continued to run too fast even when I finally turned on the watch light and realized what was going on.  I finished the first mile in 9:19, 30 seconds faster than even my “optimistic” goal.

I’d like to say that I learned my lesson on the first mile and calmed down for the second.  I’d like to say that, but I can’t.  A combination of a downhill section followed by the flat course along the river resulted in a 9:12 pace for the second mile.  The notes that I wrote down after the race indicated that I struggled to handle the varying paces of the people around me.  Unfortunately, I unintentionally kept up the pace of those I was near and spent energy passing people I shouldn’t have been passing in the first place.  After two miles, I was a full minute ahead of where I should have been.  Not good.

Finally on mile 3, some sanity was restored and I finally ran a reasonable pace – 9:49.  Or maybe it was just the long slow climb up to Kingston Pike that finally slowed me down.  My notes for mile 4: “Rolling hills with some serious uphill sections.  Pace dropped since I was trying to slow down and deal with the hills, too.”  My time for this mile was 9:58, so I finally started to regulate my speed.

Ooops.  Mile 5 is the entry into Sequoyah Hills, so it’s downhill to the river with an uphill section in the middle.  I ran it in 9:44 when I should have been conserving energy. 

My notes for mile 6:  “Flat section along the river, so I ran too fast again.”  Yes, 9:33 was way too fast.  On a positive note, it was really nice to run past the park where I spent so much time hanging out on the weekends in High School.  If only I could have stopped at Long’s Drug Store for a hamburger and a milkshake when we ran passed it 20 minutes later…

Mile 7 continued the relatively flat section along the river and then started to lead back into the hills as we moved away.  I managed to regulate the pace to 9:56 here.

My notes for mile 8:  “Hill on Noelton didn’t seem as bad as it was built up to be on the message boards.  Passed several people on the way up (it’s actually a hill followed by a short flat piece and then another hill).  Once you get up to Kingston Pike, it’s relatively flat and even downhill for the rest of the mile.  My pace was 10:04, which seemed appropriate at the time.

I continued this pace into mile 9, where I ran a 10-minute mile as we moved onto the greenway behind the UT student apartments and West High School.  I was a full minute ahead of where I should have been according to my “best case” scenario (and I had already been as much as 1:30 ahead at one point).

So the first third of the race was over... but the impacts of running too fast at the start are yet to come.

Next time:  Running with my legs (as if I had a choice)