Chickamaunga Battefield Half Marathon Race Report

This past weekend Leigh and I were lucky enough to spend some time in Chattanooga, Tennessee for a short holiday with several of our incredible friends from our time in Birmingham.  While I guess the official reason for the gathering was to be the Chickamaunga Battlefield half and full marathon, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was a little more excited to catch up with friends than for a cold, hilly foot race.

 

I didn't know much about the CBM, other than that it's supposed to be a really pretty course, and that every year it sells out well in advance.  I was really stoked for a three day weekend and a little vacation with Leigh and friends, but I was still 100% committed to turning out a good effort on race morning.  One thing that I've noticed as I (try) to mature as an athlete is that I have the ability to turn on or off my competitive juices fairly quickly.  I've always thought that the ability to keep a level head is an underrated quality for an endurance athlete to possess.  I try to ride emotional highs and lows without letting nervous energy take over.  Fortunately I can stay pretty relaxed and just sort of roll with the punches leading right up to the start of an event, but without exception- when it's time to toe the line I am ready to fight to the death.


This was definitely my approach at Chickamaunga, keeping things light and loose the day before and even the morning of- but as I stood on the starting line I was thinking about what I needed to do to win.  There were certainly unknowns- I wasn't familiar with the course or any of the half dozen or so fast looking dudes on the start line who I assumed would make up the lead pack after the gun (or cannon).  

I forgot to mention, the race is held on an old Civil War battleground, and let me tell you- they take their Civil War history pretty seriously around here.  There were bearded dudes in navy coats and grey coats milling about complete with muskets and sabers, and the these fine characters started the race for us with a blast from a cannon on wheels that looked like it was from Black Beard's pirate ship!


Right from the gun one guy took off out front, separating himself from me and 4 others within the first 200 meters.  He seemed to be daring anyone to run with him, and I was pretty sure he wasn't going to last long in the lead with the pace he was trying to establish.  I ran the first 2 miles on the rolling trail with the chase group, coming through in 12:15.  This was a little off my goal pace of 6 min/mile, so I picked it up just a touch, and the other guys were content to let me slip off the front of the pack.  That is the way it stayed for the next 40 minutes or so- I trailed the leader by about :30 seconds, with 2 or 3 in the chase group another :45 seconds behind me.  I was still having a hard time believing that the rather 'mature' looking dude in the lead was going to hold his sub 6 min pace for the entire 13.1 miles, but at mile 10 I still hadn't closed the gap.  It was right about mile 10 that I hit a rough patch.  I took in a gel and tried to focus on form and economy, and I slowly dragged myself through a minor come apart, but I lost a few more seconds.  I lost sight of the leader at each curve in the path, and picked him up again at the top of each hill.  At mile 12 there was no one in sight behind me, and he was maybe :50 seconds up the road in front.  I fought like hell to reel him in, but it just wasn't my day. 

I finished 2nd in 1:20:56, and although I was :10 seconds/mile off my goal time, I was fairly pleased with the effort.  I try to treat event as a totally new learning experience, and I definitely took something from this race.  In the future if I find myself near the leaders early in a race- I need to suck it up, hang with them and see what happens.  By making assumptions about what would happen later in the race consciously letting dude get away- I effectively took myself out of the race.  I never gave myself a chance, and that's something I won't let happen again.

Race results can be found here:   http://chattanoogatrackclub.org/raceResults/results/raceResults_239.txt