Ok — it is a little chilly today and Nikki jumped on her bike and commuted to work with no thought about it. I’m sitting here figuring out an excuse to not ride my bike….
…. it’s hard not to be motivated by her discipline. Better hit the road and account for traffic (and hopefully a 2 min rinse).
Short little run. Felt good to get out and run some, my left quad was pretty sore?
Logbook Activity
Logbook Activity
Kate just wrote a post about having troubles storing her bike. Nikki and I have had to make the decision to give one room of our two bedroom townhome almost entirely to storage of bicycles. I’d love to have a garage to store the bikes, but even more appealing would be a place to work on the bikes. Imagine Nikki’s excitement when I pull out a bike in the living room to begin work… yikes.
I do have to say that it is worth it. In addition to these bikes, we have 2 mountain bikes that are pretty much worthless at this point due to rust and poor condition due to them being on the porch at our former living space.
Logbook Activity
This race was a little bit different for me, so the race report will be a little different. In this report, I will not include race strategy or performance details. I posted the race data from my Garmin yesterday, that should be enough to explain that side of the race.
I ended up getting into the Country Music Marathon on a last minute whim. Here’s how that happened: Nikki was planning on running the Derby Half Marathon and had trained for that race. A little over a week ago, she got an email saying that the Derby Half Marathon and Marathon was full. Her comment to me was,
“I guess you are not doing the race”
Which was fine with me because I wasn’t really excited about doing the Half Marathon anyway. Then I asked,
“I don’t think you signed up either. I don’t remember getting the receipt for your registration?”
It turned out that she hadn’t signed up. She ended up calling a friend (Jill) that was doing Country Music and decided to go to Nashville. Long story short, Nikki ended up not being able to travel with Jill… Nikki was going to go alone… I said I would go with her… I decided to sign up to do the full marathon.
The Marathon Course - the scenery
The half and full marathon runners are together until the 11 mile mark. While the first half of the marathon has some scenic areas (actually a couple different scenic neighborhoods), the full marathon offers an even better enviornment to run through.
There are two stretches after the courses seperate that were very refreshing. The first section was an approximately 1.5 mile stretch that was along a bike path that was along the river. While there were no spectators during that section, it was nice to get out of the streets and run with Jill in a peaceful and more relaxing setting.
The second section was between miles 23 and 25. That section was a loop through a park, evoking similar peaceful thoughts. A welcomed thought when you are at those portions of the marathon.
The Marathon Course - the terrain
I ran the 2004 Country Music Marathon and since that time I’ve been telling people that the course was a flat race. I apologize to anyone that I’ve given this advice. The course is not flat. It is not a particularly fast course either.
There are many sections during the course that have some type of hilly terrain - it never has a long stretch (multiple miles) of running that is forgiving or that would allow you to pull back large amounts of time lost on previous hill climbs.
Nashville as a host city
I just completed the Rock N Roll Marathon in Arizona this past January; given that the race was put on by the same race organization, I think it is fair to compare the two events. I personally enjoyed the venue, course and atmosphere of the Country Music Marathon more than the Rock N Roll in Arizona.
The one thing that made my experience in Arizona so rewarding was the Team in Training involvement, but overall, Nashville is more my style. Not only do I enjoy country music, but the downtown in Nashville and the entertainment options in Nashville are more appealing.
Lodging
We signed up late for the race and were left seeking hotel space at the last minute. We ended up staying at a Quality Inn off of Interstate 24, which was about 3 miles fromt he finish (Titan’s Stadium). A perfect location because it is easy to get to the stadium and they have buses running to the start line.
As we checked into the room I thought we had got lucky, as the lobby was clean and modern. Our room turned out to be “the worse room we’ve ever stayed in,” (a quote from my never-likes-to-complain wife). Besides the damp and mold / moist smell, it felt like it was two feet from the interstate traffic. In fact, after a couple hours of trying to sleep, Nikki got up and went and tried to sleep on the bathroom floor to get away from the noise.
That’s all I say about that. The hotel that Jill stayed in was a nice place that was on West End. I don’t remember the hotel’s name, but it was across from the Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery. A great place to get something to eat. I had the porter, which I can recommend, along with the Buffalo Burger; great post race recovery food!
Final Thoughts
I have now done the Country Music Marathon twice. It is on the top of my favorite marathon list to this point. For those of you doing a 50 States and DC challenge, I suggested making the CMM your Tennesse stop.
This race was personally satisfying. Running with my wife and a good friend and just enjoying the day is a great way to spend a Saturday - add in another 30,000(ish) runners and it becomes a party.
Surprising good, considering that I ran the marathon yesterday…?
Logbook Activity
So I decided to head to Nashville with Nikki and thought that I’d jump into the race and run the half marathon with her and then run the full with her running partner (and our friend) - Jill. It was a lot of fun. I’ll write up a race report later, I also used my podcasting recorder during the race, so hopefully I can get that edited this week.
Here are the stats from my Garmin: I tried to use the mile markers on the race course, not the mile labs on the Garmin. They were about .2 miles different. I also missed the split at mile 11, so there are only 25 laps.
lap 1 - 1.08 miles / 8:50.17 / 8:10 pace / 152 bpm
lap 2 - 0.94 miles / 8:04.43 / 8:38 pace / 152 bpm
lap 3 - 1.00 miles / 8:26.60 / 8:24 pace / 154 bpm
lap 4 - 1.03 miles / 8:10.25 / 7:57 pace / 154 bpm
lap 5 - 1.00 miles / 7:45.44 / 7:47 pace / 154 bpm
lap 6 - 1.01 miles / 8:08.40 / 8:01 pace / 153 bpm
lap 7 - 1.00 miles / 8:17.58 / 8:16 pace / 157 bpm
lap 8 - 1.02 miles / 8:09.17 / 8:00 pace / 153 bpm
lap 9 - 0.99 miles / 7:31.55 / 7:35 pace / 155 bpm
lap 10 - 1.01 miles / 7:29.53 / 7:23 pace / 154 bpm
lap 11 - 2.01 miles / 16:37.95 / 8:18 pace / 155 bpm
lap 12 - 1.02 miles / 8:24.17 / 8:16 pace / 147 bpm
lap 13 - 1.02 miles / 8:31.90 / 8:22 pace / 153 bpm
lap 14 - 1.01 miles / 8:14.04 / 8:08 pace / 152 bpm
lap 15 - 1.02 miles / 8:59.58 / 8:48 pace / 151 bpm
lap 16 - 1.01 miles / 8:46.80 / 8:42 pace / 153 bpm
lap 17 - 1.00 miles / 8:56.10 / 8:55 pace / 148 bpm
lap 18 - 1.01 miles /8:52.33 / 8:45 pace / 154 bpm
lap 19 - 1.02 miles / 9:03.60 / 8:53 pace / 151 bpm
lap 20 - 1.01 miles / 9:07.47 /9:04 pace / 152 bpm
lap 21 - 1.01 miles / 9:26.08 / 9:21 pace / 153 bpm
lap 22 - 1.02 miles / 9:28.12 / 9:16 pace / 150 bpm
lap 23 - 1.03 miles / 9:54.95 / 9:40 pace / 149 bpm
lap 24 - 1.01 miles / 10:24.25 / 10:21 pace / 147 bpm
lap 25 - 1.24 miles / 11:09.85 / 9:01 pace / 156 bpm
Finished!
This makes me feel pretty good about my fitness. I jumped in and did the race. Feel pretty good today, a little sore but Nikki and I went for a walk this morning. My heart rates were all in the mid to low 150’s… normally during a marathon that I try and race that average heart rate would be around the upper 170’s. Now, I couldn’t handle that type of intensity now….
But this “trial” does let me feel good about this idea of being committed to the basic week and regular exercise. As Jim said in Jodi’s last podcast (www.confessionsofarunner.com), it is a commitment to a lifestyle. The ability to keep this mentality has allowed me to clear up some nutrition issues and still allows me to be fit.
More in the race report and podcast.
Logbook Activity
Last month I wrote a post titled “Testing to know your fitness and racing abilities.” One of the ideas was to use a regular workout and the workout data to monitor the changes in your fitness. You can use the link and go read the post if you are interested.
Here is what I wanted to share that makes this easy to track at Sweat365:
Use your “categories” or “tags” to label these specific workouts. An example that I just started is a workout that I labeled “Athen’s School“. It is a workout that I get in regularly during the week now that I’m getting outdoors on the bike. As I continue to do the workout, I can use the label and in the future I can pull up all the workouts by going to that label’s page.
This is a very simple way to keep your fitness tests organized, it makes them easily accessible and an easy way to review the data.
Logbook Activity
Gary on Twitter Gary's Race Reports
