Race 33 Georgia Half Marathon

My daughter Jen and I spent St. Paddy's Day morning making our away around downtown Atlanta for the Georgia Half Marathon.  This, being our 2nd year in a row to do this, are old pros now with getting up at a crazy 4:00 AM to get down to the 5:15 Marta train to take us downtown.  We arrived at Centennial Olympic Park with plenty of time to cycle through the porta-potties and even grab a free cup of coffee.  

Free cup of coffee really does taste better!

The weather was perfect for the race at 52 degrees at the start.  We walked around a bit, weaving in and out of the 10,000 or so participants and made our way to our starting corral.

Jen & me waiting for the start

We were about a quarter of mile back from the the actual starting line, think it was just over 12 minutes to get to start:

Back of the pack at the start

We were off.

For this race, my plan was to not run at all, I wanted to walk the entire course.  With the recent knee issues, I wanted to see see if I could do the entire half marathon without having any knee pain by not running.  Even though Jen usually runs these type races, for this race she decided hang with me.

One of the best views on this course is around mile 4, a great view of the Atlanta skyline:

Atlanta skyline just after sunrise

A few miles later, made our way through Little Five Points (if you are ever there and looking to grab a burger, this is your place!).

The Vortex - Little Five Points

One of the funny things  about the race was around mile 12, I was tired, I was spent.  I think the energy needed at that point to move forward takes away from the energy going to the brain.  As I approached a water/Gatorade station on the course I see a sign (race logo official sign) and it has the following on it "M&M".  For the life of me I could not figure out what M&M stood for - really!  So I took a cup (thinking it was Gatorade) from a volunteer as I made my through the station.   I think to myself, this cup is really light, did they forget to put Gatorade in it?  And what are these little round things in the bottom of the cup?   

M&Ms!!!      Is this what they call "distance walker brain"?

They did hit the spot though - very thankful they had an M&M station.

The walking worked pretty good for me and the best part, no knee pain!   I finished with a time of 2:52, it came out to be 13:06  minutes/mile.  I am just glad I can still do these races without the knee pain!  And, as usual, all finishers receive a medal, it was unique because of the day.

Georgia Half Marathon Finisher Medal