A HARD Half

I think I mentioned before that they changed the course for the Asheville Citizen Times Half Marathon. I was completely unprepared for this hilly, hilly, hilly course.

The morning started off well. I woke up in the very nice Renaissance Asheville Hotel on Woodfin. Highly recommend this hotel! I was pretty tired when the alarm went off at 6am, so I made a pot of the in room coffee, which was Starbucks. I drank a fairly large cup of coffee and ate my protein bar. The coffee was admittedly a HUGE mistake. I left the room at 7 am to walk to the start line. I was only half a mile from the start so I allowed plenty of time to get there, stretch and be ready for the start at 7:30am.

The start of the race was great. The field is limited to 1,000 and the 5K has a separate start time so there's plenty of room to get into a comfortable pace early. The first two miles were great. We ran through downtown Asheville and it was mostly small rolling hills. Very beautiful. Then just before mile marker two, they threw in a real hill. Short but steep. It caught many of us off guard. But it was followed by a nice long descent and it was a gorgeous neighborhood. Of course as soon as you finished the descent, they threw another steep hill at you. This one was longer. But again followed by another long descent. At this point we'd run three miles and there seemed to be more downhill than up. So far, I really like this course! Miles four through six presented more rolling hills similar with a couple of steep ones thrown in. Mile seven was my favorite mile. At this point we left the asphalt to run on a small dirt trail near the Grove Park Inn. It's fairly flat at this point and the break from the asphalt is really appreciated. It's at this point that you can pick up your pace a bit and pass a few people (if you can get around them!). However, just before the mile marker, you return to the asphalt and climb a long slow climb around the Grove Park Inn with no satisfying descent at the end. At this point I began running half of the hills and walking the other half. In years past it was this point where the course began to ease up on you. Not this year. Mile eight was more up and down and just when you needed a break from hills, mile 9 was a solid mile of uphill. It seemed to go on forever! Up the hill, turn left and up another hills, turn right and up another hill, for one mile! Miles ten through thirteen were brought more rolling hills with a nice long in mile 12 leading back into downtown Asheville and then approx. one half of a mile from the end is a nice short STEEP hill followed up a short incline then flat to the finish. Rough, very rough.

I've been resting my foot since the Flying Pig Marathon, which is doing much better. I've been somewhat avoiding running hills and long runs and really concentrated on more 5Ks this summer. So to say I wasn't prepared for this race is an understatement! I finished in two hours and fifteen minutes, which is eight minutes slower than my previous worst for this course. But if I didn't mention this before, it was a gorgeous course! Next year I plan to incorporate some hill repeats in my long run training, even though we don't have hills anywhere near the ones I ran on Saturday.

So as I've said before you can always find something interesting/funny in every race and this race had quite a few things! The first thing was a handmade, wooden sign on a fence near mile ten that read "Healthcare 4 Ever One" The '4' was backwards and yes, 'ever one' not 'everyone.' I bet they vote, too. The next thing was a man in his 70s or 80s who was running close to me and when a spectator yelled "You're doing great!" he replied in a grumpy, angry voice "No I'm not!" Awkward! Another thing was a woman yelling from the doorway of her house to a cheering volunteer at the street corner adjacent to her property "Can you move down a block?" and the volunteer replied that she couldn't. She was keeping the cars from driving onto the race course.

I noticed too that this year there was more crowd support than in past years. Not that there was an incredible amount of support, but compared to years past there was. There was also a great deal more advertising along the course. People had hung banners for other races, bike rides and various products. It was good to see people embrace this opportunity, even in a self-serving way. Support in any form is always welcome!