Atlanta Half Marathon

My first half marathon is done, and with the exception of my right knee being wrecked, I am pretty happy with my performance overall. My goal time was 2:30 and I finished with a chip time of 2:31:36 which could have been much better without the knee issues.

I started out with a nice 11:10min/mile pace and things were going great until I hit mile 7 and began what is essentially one long steady uphill climb to the finish. There were several 100-300 ft climbs and one 630ft+ climb between miles 11 and 12, which is where my knee essentially locked up. I think it was mainly due to the combination of hill and running on the right side of the road with a left to right slope that did in my knee. I am use to running on the left side of the road with and opposite slope or on the sidewalk, so that little bit of pressure on the outside of my right knee over 13 miles was just too much.

Nevertheless, I dug down deep and gutted out the last mile. Mile splits were 10:54, 11:27, 11:12, 11:09, 11:29, 10:51, 10:37, 11:41, 11:49, 12:17, 12:25, & 11:07. As you can see they slowly degraded as the up hill sections started, but I am happy that I still had the guts to leg out an 11:07 at the end.

Here is the elevation gain by mile. Time to rest and heal this knee.

Mile Elevation Gain
1 - 44
2 - 32
3 - 22
4 - 44
5 - 68
6 - 19
7 - 0
8 - 144
9 - 98
10 - 628
11 - 404
12 - 1,107
13 - 284
14 - 0