Atlanta Thanksgiving Half-Marathon

Race instead of turkey

"Guys, how are you going to celebrate Thanksgiving?"
"Are you going to celebrate somehow Thanksgiving?"
"Have you decided what you are going to do on Thanksgiving?"

It were "TOP3" questions our colleagues were asking last time. Two days before Thanksgiving, Dug, knowing about my attitude towards running, asked if I know about Atlanta Thanksgiving Half Marathon? "No", I said and opened Google. It was my answer on those  "TOP3" questions - I'm running!

And it begun...

• Registration in the last day...
• Expected time 1:35...
• Searching possibilities to get there in time without paying additional 30$...
• Morning discussion with drunk girl and her strange friend...
• Fail and salvation with clothes...
• Starting wave confusion...
• Start, GO GO GO.......

As organizers say, there were more than six thousand participants. Как утверждают организаторы, в забеге учавствовали более шести тысяч человек. Depending on expected result, they were separated into different waves A, B, C... etc. My expected result was 1:35, thus my wave was C. I thought that there are so much runners who expect to be faster than me (2 waves), but something was wring there...

My race plan was very simple - to keep pace around 7.06 mi/min. Exactly this pace I'll have to maintain during marathon in 2 weeks (naive, right). Generally it was good. No drinking and eating during the run, no pain or any kind of discomfort. I was running and remembering our long runs in Moldova. This experience was extremely helpful during this race. I WAS OVERTOOKING ALL THE TIME! No, I'm not bragging, actually it is waste of energy. I means that either I was in wring wave, or lots from waves A and B overestimated their possibilities. Here is statistic from my garmin watches:

And here are official results:

Place	Name	Bib	Age	Div Place	Gender Place	Half Split	Clock Time	Net Time	Hometown
213	GRIGORI PASLARI	11241	27	36	188	43:58	1:44:22	1:33:44

Organization

Registration - super! Either online, or, if you missed it, in small expo. There were 8 laptops with running application for registration. Filled in a small form, paid, got number and T-shirt and you are done in less than 10 min. Plenty of time for choosing another peer of nice trainers or running clothe.

Start area - ups! As I already have some marathon&half-marathon experience, I didn't expect any "surprises" this time, and it was my mistake. It turned to be local marathon, for Atlanta guys only, which is different from International one I was expecting.

• There were no place to dress. I was expected that you come already dressed for race or you can do it in your car. Probably it was exactly like this for majority, but I got to the start by taxi/metro/bus. Even in case I could come dressed, the same transport I had to use to get back. I believe combination of words "Exhausted, sweat, 24 F, station, walking" won't please anyone... So I dressed up in tent people were hiding from the wind.
• There were no place to leave your stuff while you are running even if you've got place to dress. Usually participants are given a bag with number, where you put all your clothe and any other things you don't need during the race and pic it up after the race providing participant number...

Course - good. We run near different architectural and historical places, but as usually, I didn't have possibility to enjoy it. There were hills and climbs. Sometimes it was quite narrow, so that I had to overtook by pavement, but generally it was ok.

Medal - amazing. I like participating into competitions and enriching my "wall of fame". One more medal - one more pleasant reminiscence!

Thank you!

I want to thank Andrei Sedelkov. He had to play a lot of roles at the same time: responsible for transportation, suppert team, photo/video operator, ответсвенный за транспорт и планирование маршрута, группа поддержки, фото/видео оператор, watchman, responsible for recovery after race (here we had some issues). Without Andrei I would late and run in jacket and with bag :).

And of course thank you organizers for this event full of fun and volunteers for your involvement! Really appreciate it!

Outcomes.

It was important for me to check if I can keep pace 7.06 mi/min for long time - checked, can, but probably not long enough for marathon.

That's all, this time outcomes are short.

P.S. It was my first half-marathon at 7:30am!

Русская версия.